Don’t be so pessimistic. Andrew Little the orator will win hearts and minds tomorrow. He has the fulsome support of the caucus, the members and the unions. He will not stumble like Shearer and will not be as arrogant and pompous as The Cunliffe. He will give a polished performance and get the polls rising. Surely?
Sure, but it will still be snake oil and not the full story. There will be ulterior motives. There will be half-truths. There will be deception. There will facts claimed which are anything but. There will be diversions courtesy of weak-arse jokes (he is never funny, even with partisan hat placed to side).
But yes you’re right – he could step into Labour territory again and announce the building of 5,000 state houses this year. That would in fact be something – 5,000 state houses of 4-5 bedrooms, 300m2 size, double-internal access garage, 20 toilets, media room, office, butlers pantry and jet-ski parking space.
Yes Phil U. Key will be rewarding his ilk by kicking out tenants in the state houses in the hills above Mission Bay. There’s gold in them there hills, gold to be plundered by his rich mates. South Auckland is where the poor belong he will thinking but not saying.
Don’t be so pessimistic. John Key the orator will win hearts and minds tomorrow. He has the fulsome support of the caucus, the members and the Landowners. He will not stumble and will not be arrogant and pompous. He will give a polished performance and get the polls rising. Surely?
a few days ago, while enjoying a local cider and listening to some songs, we revisited this lovely tune.
the thes’ the beat(en) generation.
youtube.com/watch?v=wYb2kx6CHsM
this is a stripped back acoustic version.
originally released in 1988, its is perhaps more poignant now.
random lyric
“youth, o youth, are being seduced, by the greedy hands of politics and half truths.
… reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation ”
genius.
i urge you to take 3 1/2 mins from your lives and have a listen
There are most of the main issues in there of course, but the elephant in the room imo, is the over-arching theme about taking from / altering the environment to suit farming. In this regard the writer points to the most cows in Israel and the biggest dairy farm in Saudi Arabia, both dry places of course, as if these somehow provide an argument for doing what is being done in NZ i.e. altering and eating the environment… “they are doing it so why aren’t we?”. That is no argument. At all.
We have been eating and altering the environment for the last 150 years (and further back prior to Euro and Asian invasion). The effects have been severely degraded rivers, virtually zero forests left with subsequent plant and animal life extinguishment, the list goes on.
Why are we continuing to eat the environment when we have seen the effects and are doing way too little to reverse things?
The writers view is understandable when it comes from his subjective position however it completely misses the big picture – you know, the one that involves leaving a better place for our mokopuna, which we in NZ have never done! We have never left the land in better condition than when we got it. In 150 years. Sobering fact that we should dwell on.
…
How about this – we ban all bare land and let mother nature revert. Imagine NZ with full native bush cover. Incredible. Mind-blowing. (of course there are some issues to be dealt with in such a plan)….. *sigh*
Come vto you told me to think once you should try some of you’re own medicine. He didn’t appear to be asking for any more than for people to find out the truth about about drought relief and other factors around farming .
Sure. Pet topic of mine so feel free to discount as you see fit, though the above is my opinion based on knowing plenty heaps about drought, its relief, and farming.
You know mr waghorn, the really good thing is that this debate has finally sparked up to an extent where I think the raising of the issues and the initial anger and yelling between the parties has been dealt with and now the debate moves to a calmer and more reasoned debate, as you point out the writer points out… That is very good.
Imo though the thing to watch our for is that we don’t address the big picture on how need to deal with the planet and it gets tied down into technical details that exist in the current paradigm. The paradigm needs changing. This is where the debate should focus before dropping down into detail. I don’t know if that is where the debate is – I think it is at, for example, whether or not a particular dam should be built instead of whether any dam should be built i.e. live within the planet’s means.
his point that any water they take is with consent doesn’t mean they are not wrecking the environment to do so. Also farmers are one of the main lobbyists to change the RMA. Wont change the affordability of houses in Auckland giving more river draining irrigation to farmers.
I have not got the time unfortunately to get enough information to make a real informed comment on the smaller detail of what’s right or wrong or how far we should go on our current model of farming.
On the big picture stuff all the problems on this rock of ours start and finish with mankind and I doubt we are capable as a species of making the needed changes . ( unless we build a all powerful religion around John Lennon s”IMAGINE” )
Europe’s top rights body has said mass surveillance practices are a fundamental threat to human rights and violate the right to privacy enshrined in European law.
The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe says in a report that it is “deeply concerned” by the “far-reaching, technologically advanced systems” used by the US and UK to collect, store and analyse the data of private citizens. It describes the scale of spying by the US National Security Agency, revealed by Edward Snowden, as “stunning”.
The report also suggests that British laws that give the monitoring agency GCHQ wide-ranging powers are incompatible with the European convention on human rights. It argues that British surveillance may be at odds with article 8, the right to privacy, as well as article 10, which guarantees freedom of expression, and article 6, the right to a fair trial.
“These rights are cornerstones of democracy. Their infringement without adequate judicial control jeopardises the rule of law,” it says.
No explanation from anyone or anywhere will satisfy me as to why the NZ flag was flown at half mast on Auckland Harbour Bridge ( and likely elsewhere too) in ‘honour’ of the late Saudi King, ruler of all things vile and misogynist.
H.M. Betty Windsor, mother of four, is reported as having given him her personal opinion some years back … this is worth a moment …
Walking in Windsor Park many, many years ago on my OE, when my partner and I saw a car barrelling along one of the walkways/roads towards us.
Stepped out of the way, and got a glimpse of HM at the driver’s wheel. Vivid impression of someone enjoying themselves. Don’t know if the fact that the plebs had to move out of the way had something to do with that or not.
Flags at half mast, we do for any Head of State, but little has been said about the fact we are sending the GG half way across the Globe to attend the funeral. Especially when you consider the PM wouldn’t even pop next door when Hugo Chavez passed away.
The man who knew too much for Griffin and Bell
Gordon Campbell on Jim Mora’s Panel
“Someone like Scoop’s Gordon Campbell would be ideal. He wouldn’t let Hooton get away with anything.”—Anne
“Gordon Campbell would be great! (although I don’t think I’ve heard him on radio before).”—weka http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26012015/#comment-957334
Actually, Gordon Campbell WAS a guest on The Panel a few years ago, on at least two occasions. In the dire history of this dog of a show, Campbell supplies not one but TWO highlights: on one occasion confounding the bullying ex-copper Graham Bell and on another confounding the superficially jolly back-slapper Richard Griffin. On each occasion Campbell simply pointed out that they did not have a clue what they were talking about. A humiliated Bell retreated into a glowering, resentful silence, while Griffin made a groveling apology and retraction on the spot.
Yes, I remember that. We never heard Campbell again but whether it was because he wasn’t invited back or whether he chose not to return because he considered it a waste of time I don’t know. I suspect it was the latter.
Bastards!
These rich are the real beneficiaries, parasites and scum of the country. Put the buggers in jail for a few years to spend in the company of low level crims and without any special privileges.
A lesson they and the other rich crooks will never forget.
That article is actually startling, boom. The super-rich are defined as having over $50 million and there are 200 individuals in that group which is being investigated by the IRD special team. 93 declared taxable income below $70,000.
$77 million is being sought in additional assessments. If you measure that figure against the 200 being investigated, that’s $350,000 each in taxation which was wrongly declared. If it’s put against the 93, then it’s $827,000 avoided…………..
According to mickysavage in February 2014 in this Standard post average beneficiary fraud was $22 million in 2010.
In mickysavage’s post, the average fraud for tax evasion was $800,000.
I guess the question is, why aren’t the fraudsters who under-claimed by $77 million at an average of the amount of convicted fraudsters facing the courts?
The onus should be on a person making false declarations to prove he or she is not guilty. After all, they have signed a declaration that their tax claim is true. That process would name them, perhaps shame them, and act as a deterrent with the prospect of jail time.
The super-rich are defined as having over $50 million and there are 200 individuals in that group which is being investigated by the IRD special team.
Let’s assume that the average wealth of these individuals is $100M (where the minimum wealth is $50M). Therefore the 200 individuals involved have a net wealth of $20B = $20,000M dollars.
$77M in extra tax assessed = 0.39% of their net wealth.
I think the super-rich will live through this experience.
At this level of assets and income, they are at the top of the one percenters- the owners of 50% of the world’s wealth. You are a one percenter with assets above about $800,000.
What the 1%ers with $800K net wealth don’t realise is the massive wealth inequality within the 1%. It is in fact in the personal interests of most of the 1% to reduce wealth inequality!
“The onus should be on a person making false declarations to prove he or she is not guilty.”
I strongly disagree. The bedrock of our justice system, even hardly observed in practice, should not be abandoned for money. The onus is still on the prosecution, although tax magistrates with investigatory powers would be a good idea.
Your proposal would immediately be used against Dotcom, for a start, and half the population would believe he was guilty without any proof.
Your’e absolutely right, Murray Rawshark. And I’m glad you strongly disagree. I wrote more out of sheer frustration as to how people can have so much and want to rort even more.
I like your idea of tax magistrates.
Do these tax dodgers get penalty tax to help defray the cost of the IRD’s work? Sort of ‘abuser pays’?
Four days before Kristallnacht,
the Herald was breezily promoting travel to Nazi Germany
HOW NAZI GERMANY RECEIVES BRITISH TOURISTS
By M. F. GRAHAM New Zealand Herald, 5 November 1938, Page 1 of Supplement
IT would be hard to decide which thought us the more courageous—our old friends in England, when told we were planning to visit Germany, or our new German friends on learning that we had braved the perils of world travel all the way from New Zealand in order to enjoy a few weeks’ rest and relaxation, in their peaceful and prosperous country. ….
..cd u plse tell us why you so distorted what actually happened..
..in yr reporting of the hooton/williams piece on nat-rad yesterday..
Golly, phillip, you sure like to bang away at something, even when it’s been patiently clarified for you. If you think Hooton was not trying to undermine Andrew Little yesterday, and if you failed to comprehend that Mike Williams was in his usual groveling mode, then I suggest that you lay off the weed for a while, and clear your head.
No that’s not “all I’ve got”, phillip, but your obtuseness is something to behold. You usually write quite interesting and thoughtful messages, but on this occasion you’ve somehow got the idea that Hooton was not playing games yesterday, and that Williams was anything other than the groveller he usually is.
You’re either lying like a National Party operative, or you’re hallucinating. I can’t think of a better explanation than too much dope.
i wd ask anyone to go and listen to that segment..
Indeed. And could anyone who thinks Hooton was not up to his usual smarmy insinuations and that Williams was not kowtowing in his usual humiliating fashion, please say so.
Pu actually asked a pretty straight forward question: how did Hooton undermine Little?
He TRIED to undermine him, to plant a seed of doubt in listeners’ minds. Anybody with a grain of sense, who isn’t on drugs, could understand what he was up to. He put the most negative possible spin on the latest polls. He even said that Little’s leadership would be endangered.
1. in latest poll, Labour have half what National do. Because we’re in FPP still, thanks Matthew.
2. far lower than Goff or Shearer or any of Little’s predecessor’s were polling. Because all of Labour’s problems are Little’s fault now, and he alone has to turn things around from one poll to the next.
3. if Little can’t end the year higher than 26% then we’re looking at another leadership change by the end of 2015
4. indiviual polls are what count, not trends.
Looks like fairly standard manipulative spin from Hooton to me. He wants to undermine the Labour party and the left by making out that Little is deficient, and Labour are still in disarray and will need a new leader! 🙄
That’s the first two minutes. Can’t be bothered with the rest, so am just going to skip to Williams.
Ryan asked Williams not if he agrees with Hooton in general, but if he agrees that Little now needs to pick up the ball with any and every opportunity.
Williams, “Yeah, I would absolutely agree with almost everything Matthew said.” Followed by some comment about the summer being almost politics free moodwise amongst the public.
He then goes on to say some things that actually contradict Hooton, so the question for me remains why does Williams do that agreeing with shit at the start of his commentary?
Thanks weka, for taking the time to seriously read what I wrote and check it against phillip’s allegations. You’re correct: his loathing for the Labour leadership has blinded him to the extent that he is prepared to endorse the manipulative words of Matthew Hooton, which were as sincere yesterday as they were in his ludicrous tribute to Nelson Mandela in December 2013.
Gosh, phillip, a simple expression of disagreement would have put your case across clearly. Why escalate it to such unpleasantness?
I note also that you hijacked a serious thread about something else entirely, that I had initiated. If you do that again, I will make a formal complaint to the Headmaster.
“You’re correct: his loathing for the Labour leadership has blinded him to the extent that he is prepared to endorse the manipulative words of Matthew Hooton,”
Well, yes you did, actually. You wrote: “I’m guessing his disagreement is politics (he thinks Labour is deficient etc).”
I wrote: “his loathing for the Labour leadership has blinded him to the extent that he is prepared to endorse the manipulative words of Matthew Hooton”
In other words, as you wrote, he’s driven by his (quite understandable) attitude about the Labour Party.
I said I thought it was about phil’s politics, you said it IS about his hatred as motivation and what that hatred does to his perception.
There is a difference here and it’s to do with attributing things to other people that haven’t been checked out. It takes people into conversational cul de sacs. I’m not picking on you, we all do it. I just saw this thing happening and though ok, here we go again. And what a waste when we could actually be talking about the politics.
You and phil appeared to be talking about different things. Phil was talking about the content of Hooton’s statements at face value, you were talking about what Hooton was doing with those statements and Hooton’s motivation. IMO both are valid topics, and arguing about which is rightfully valid is redundant.
Williams, “Yeah, I would absolutely agree with almost everything Matthew said.”
And that’s what listeners will remember. Williams is an idiot. How about something like “Obviously I don’t see things the same way that the NAct asslicker Hooton does, even though a few facts have crept into his analysis this time.”
Aside from that particular interview and more generally with other appearances, what concerns me is that Williams does not take the lead on any narrative or put up other compelling alternative perspectives.
Indicative of the moral thought processes of those that already have, a quote from
Joanna Pidgeon – Auckland District Law Society Vice President in today’s Herald article: The Ups and Downs of apartment living.
“You can limit your liability Joanna Pidgeon, Auckland District Law Society vice-president, has an exceptionally big Auckland floor which she plans to convert into an apartment and is enthusiastic about inner-city living.
She owns a 240sq m residential floor in a Vincent St building which comes with a 10sq m storeroom and three car parks.
But she advised people to buy in the name of a company, not an individual, saying this could act as protection if something went wrong.
“That way, there’s limited liability. If you can’t pay your body corporate fees, you can liquidate a company. If it’s bought in the name of an individual, that person can be bankrupted for non-payment.””
No mention of the financial consequences of those who her LLC owes money to, and whether it is justifiable that she uses a company to own her property – which more than likely can claim maintenance and body corporate fees as expenses.
There are some scumbags about, sorry to hear Phil hope they just took it for a joyride locally and it’s been parked up undamaged. I have a friend ( he is away for a week) who buys good cheaps cars, will see if there is a runner going for bugger all.
legacy, forrester and imprezza are the fav theft car of all time
thats all the answer you need really – the year is somewhat irrelevant after that
also – used to drive a legacy station wagon, swapped to a nissan wingroad – service charges dropped by half simply from having more room in the engine bay and things like spark plugs on top instead of jammed down the side
I feel for you. A few years ago I had a new muffler put on my car, which they said would last the rest of the car’s life. It did, of course, but it only had to last three whole days. Cost me about $400 as well.
Time to stop eating sardines. When near top of the food chain species are being affected, there is something seriously wrong.
The whole article is worth a read for its lay person coverage of how sea ecosystems work and why they are important.
In April 2014, a team of researchers from Wake Forest University announced that blue-footed boobies had nearly stopped breeding, putting the survival of the species in grave danger.
Researchers from University of California reported similar findings about another shorebird 2,000 miles from Galapagos. While conducting a survey of Mexico’s Natural Protected Areas, they discovered that the endangered California brown pelican was largely absent from its primary nesting grounds. Like the boobies, they had nearly stopped breeding. Meanwhile, marine scientists from NOAA had been studying the unprecedented illness of thousands of sea lions on California coastlines.
Are marine animals experiencing a streak of mysterious bad luck? Perhaps. But perhaps it’s not as mysterious as it may seem. Blue-footed boobies, California brown pelicans, sea lions, and a number of other species have something in common: Their natural diet is comprised largely of Pacific sardines, which have suffered the worst population crash since the mid-1900s, leading scientists to posit that the sardine crash may be having widespread impacts on local and migratory species dependent on the Pacific Ocean.
In 1948, this question was posed to ocean biologist Ed Rickett, who was investigating the most famous sardine crash in history, which began in 1946. He responded, “They’re in cans!” Today’s scientists don’t think the answer is so simple, as sardine populations are known for following a boom-and-bust cycle. However, they don’t deny that rampant fishing played a significant role in the mid-century crash, and have found that cool water temperatures triggered a natural decline in the 1940s, which was greatly exacerbated by overfishing. It would take four decades for the population to recover from that crash.
Ae, the natural boom/bust cycle needs to be undestood in the context of CC and over-fishing.
Which is another reason why I don’t get why people think population isn’t an issue. The ocean makes this really clear, because the ecosystems are much more fluid than on land. We are overfishing. We are altering the biosphere to an extent that affects the ocean’s ability to maintain itself. Even if we argue that CC is about fair distribution of use of resources, there is no getting around the finite planet.
Are we at peak fisheries yet? If we want to reverse resource depletion what should we be eating? Where will it be grown and what will that do to those ecosystems?
For a time the peak oil spectre was promoted by some pundits as a greater threat to humanity than climate change.
This false supposition has been put to rest.
Harnessing the inexhaustible resource of human ingenuity, has delivered us a new age of cheap superabundance, of unconventional fossil fuels. The new technologies of Tar Sands, Fracking, Deep Sea Oil and Gas, have pushed the prospect of peak oil back over the horizon of the foreseeable future.
If only the same inexhaustible human creativity and ingenuity could be applied to renewables.
Harnessing the inexhaustible resource of human ingenuity, has delivered us a new age of cheap superabundance, of unconventional fossil fuels. The new technologies of Tar Sands, Fracking, Deep Sea Oil and Gas, have pushed the prospect of peak oil back over the horizon of the foreseeable future.
You’re utterly wrong on this. There is no more cheap fossil fuels to be found.
None of what you mention can deliver a barrel of oil to the market for less than US$50. Is that now considered “cheap”?
The global economic stagnation that Main St has been in for years – that’s a direct result of Peak Oil (that is, peak CONVENTIONAL oil from land based oil wells) in 2005 playing out through the cost structures of the entire world.
“You’re utterly wrong on this. There is no more cheap fossil fuels to be found.”
You’re both wrong 😛
Or right.
Peak Oil was for a long time considered the pressing problem because many thought that it would prevent CC. But it didn’t arrive on time and many (myself included) have now shifted to seeing CC as the pressing issue because we can’t rely on PO to undermine the carbon economy in time. It will happen, but it will be too late.
So yes, there is no more cheap oil but we are in a transition period where the economy will pull at all the oil it can get until it falls over, and in that sense, PO is a sub issue.
The errors aside,the underlying policy initiatives (which have been in place since the 70’s,have had an effect on the demand side of the equation, the US transport and home heating efficiencies( gas vs oil) have reduced US demand by around 2 million barrels per day.
Peak oil has occurred but it has a long tail because harder more expensive options are being exhausted and the alternative for the proponents of oil is not palatable, not even conceivable. I’m not sure if PO was thought to prevent CC – CC is actually runaway-CC now and that is definitely related to the excessive orgy of oil we have lived and burned through.
The theory was that PO would mitigate the worst effects of CC, because we would be forced off FF. It wasn’t going to prevent CC (it’s always been too late for that), but there was the idea that it would stop it from getting so bad. But it didn’t happen in the timeframe expected.
“If only the same inexhaustible human creativity and ingenuity could be applied to renewables.”
Only if we powerdown. If we transition to renewables to ensure BAU, we will continue on our path of overpopulation, resource overshoot, environmental destruction, peak soil, poverty, third world starvation, war, violence etc.
I liked your post btw, it seemed more accessible and to the point than some of the others. Not saying they all have to be like this, just that I personally found it better.
Interesting to see that the government owned shops were set up by the Socialist Chavista regime with the aim to never again be subject to shortages of goods yet they themselves are suiffering a huge shortage of goods.
Of course it is all the fault of the ‘evil’ opposition forces and not the result of dunderheaded policies of the government itself – “According to one official, the children of the rich are “infiltrating people into the queues” to cause trouble.”
Do you think The Economist is making stuff up about Venezuela?
I know The Economist is making stuff up about Venezuela, just as the Grauniad and the Washington Post do. Since you do not know anything, you believe their channeling of State Department black propaganda.
Do you deny there are massive shortages and people waiting in lines for hours?
There is certainly orchestrated hoarding of essential items in order to create a sense of crisis. The United States is using the same game plan it did in Chile in order to destabilize and eventually destroy that democratically elected government. Unfortunately for the extreme right in Venezuela, and for its U.S. funder, the people of Venezuela are well aware of what is happening. They overturned the U.S.-sponsored coup in 2002, so a bit of economic wrecking is not going to achieve very much. No one, other than fools like you, believes that Venezuela will capitulate.
Your remaining question, as well as being grammatically a nonsense, provides further evidence that you do not know what you are talking about. I ask again: why are you here? Why are you not seriously reading?
So. John Key should have not been elected according to the case bought to the High Court by Arthur Taylor. Interesting idea but what if he succeeded?
“Prisoner Arthur Taylor is representing himself in the High Court at Auckland today, arguing Prime Minister John Key shouldn’t have been elected in Helensville, as Auckland Prison inmates were denied their right to vote.
Taylor says a 2010 amendment to the law which stopped them voting is dangerous, as parliamentarians shouldn’t decide who can and can’t elect them.
It is not clear to me how the honourable Mr. Taylor has managed to link prisoners with beneficiaries and low income earners….with the threat that the latter two groups could find their right to vote….gone.
I’m not the sharpest hook in the tackle box…so help me here.
I am also not inclined towards sympathy towards our incarcerated cousins…unless the incarceration is unjust…and it will be a happy day for disabled New Zealanders when the government, and by default the community, considers people with disability as worthy of government expenditure as prisoners.
And as for Mr Taylor objecting to not being able to make his defence from the dock…tough …
When my partner testified in court…no facility to enter the witness stand like everyone else…which does bring one on a higher level than the lawyers, and only slightly lower than the judge.
They shagged around trying to rig up room at a table, a microphone, etc.
Having to crane his broken neck to answer the Judge caused him actual physical discomfort.
He was on the verge of passing out by the time they had finished with him.
I’d say most incarcerations are unjust and a waste of time and money. We can expect more of them as more private prisons are built. What Arthur Taylor is saying is that if a government can decide one group of citizens lose their voting rights, they can easily extend that to other groups. I think he has a valid point and I think many NAct supporters would happily see beneficiaries lose the right. Except for pensionsers, of course. I wish Arthur luck with his case.
“I’d say most incarcerations are unjust and a waste of time and money. ”
At the risk of inciting some sort of shit storm vis a vis “what to do with the bad guys”….well….Murray Rawshark…what do you do with the bad guys?
Send them all round to live at yours, with your family, while society develops a better way of combining relevant and effective punishment and rehabilitation with the interests of victims and the safety of the larger community?
Is that a “yes, bring them all round!” I hear?
Cause, in the meantime, for better or worse, this is the system we have….and it is far from perfect for anyone…especially for the innocent victims of offenders released back into the community when there time is up.
As for the “money”.
Hell yes, I agree the minimum of $90, 000 per annum per prisoner is a waste of money.
Oh, that the government would agree to a budget of $90,000 per year to keep a disabled person safe, housed, cared for properly!
Arthur Taylor is not, IMHO, a fearless battler for the rights of the less advantaged.
Why is it, oh annon one, that whenever anyone presents an alternate view here they get attacked.
Perhaps the best form of defence?
Pray tell, where are the hints that the government in it’s infinite evil is plotting a removal of voting rights from beneficiaries and those on low incomes?
However…if you can cast your mind back to 17th May 2013…the right to take a specific issue to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the Courts was removed from people with disabilities and their family carers.
This produced an audible (if short lived) gasp of outrage from the left…and if you wander back through TS archive you will find my post….
No one replied.
Why?
Because god forbid that a person with a genuine lived experience of an issue is given any credence
In the real world, like it or not MR, there are some people who are simply too dangerous to be allowed to free range.
Others, capable of ‘rehabilitation’ ; lock them up in isolation, away from other prisoners, but with access to education and health care, addiction counselling and grief and anger management therapy. Much more important than all that….give them space to actually think…
“Pray tell, where are the hints that the government in it’s infinite evil is plotting a removal of voting rights from beneficiaries and those on low incomes?”
Hyperbolic strawman. No-one has suggested that the govt is plotting this. The point is that if you remove voting rights from one sector, it makes others vulnerable. I can see the day down the line when beneficiaries are treated as a separate class under law. They’re already doing it via policy.
If you read the headline, Taylor is talking about ‘precedent’.
Also, see Milt’s point below about Kiwiblog commenters believing that only net tax payers should vote. There are people in NZ that want this, and it’s safe to assume some of them are in National or ACT.
Also, see Milt’s point below about Kiwiblog commenters believing that only net tax payers should vote. There are people in NZ that want this, and it’s safe to assume some of them are in National or ACT.
Yeah, that bit’s really scary but the really scary point is that most of the people wanting don’t realise that they will very rapidly not be net tax payers if it comes in. Only the 1% will be allowed to vote.
However…if you can cast your mind back to 17th May 2013…the right to take a specific issue to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the Courts was removed from people with disabilities and their family carers.
This produced an audible (if short lived) gasp of outrage from the left…and if you wander back through TS archive you will find my post….
No one replied.
Why?
Do you mean comment rather than post?
Lots of people make comments on ts without getting a reply.
The standard isn’t that great on disability issues.
I don’t see the connection with the prisoner voting article though.
“The standard isn’t that great on disability issues.”
No shit, Sherlock. lol. (or whatever is the acceptable emoticon to denote “not being nasty, just saying, ok?”)
“I don’t see the connection with the prisoner voting article though.”
Going to be difficult this, so bear with me, while I coax my average brain into forming an (acceptable) explanation.
Its like this.
Both my partner and myself (read my comment from 2013) have still not recovered from that one act. Or Act.
When we hear of other, in our humble opinion, less worthy groups and individuals, clamouring and demanding that their rights under NZBORA are acknowledged, we …..well….not very sharp emoters that we are…cry.
Can’t seem to help it. And no…we make a particular point of not feeding each others grief.
Why is it that those who have committed crimes are considered more worthy than non ACC disabled Kiwis?
If we were prisoners and not happy with the way we are treated, we could trot off to the HRC or the Courts…and at least have our day.
Neither Labour nor the Greens, despite the huff and puff in the House that day made the issue of that particular legislation an issue….until the 11th hour.
In my ignorance I foolishly thought that perhaps wandering around in this bastion of left wingerism would give me a little insight as to why this ‘outrage’ that nearly “broke the constitution” (A Geddis) was a short lived issue.
So…Mr Taylor gets up on his high one, dragging in the ‘innocent’ disadvantaged to support his defense of the rights of prisoners…but no mention of the disabled????
Why would that be?
Because they ALREADY came for the disabled….and who cried “breach of rights”….for long enough?
Clickety clack, clickety clack…as the train cars rolled out of the siding…..
“The Standard” doesn’t really exist. It is kind of a gestalt of its fervently disagreeing parts. A place rather than an entity. Only shallow fools* who try to avoid responsibility by treating a machine as a being.
If you want to change something about what it is talking about, then the best way find someone who can write posts (an artform in its own right), preferably shortish, about a topic and send them in as a guest post.
I’m trying to guest posts off my plate at present. But if you don’t catch my frenzied attention, then try again…
//====
* Bomber comes to mind here along with the crowds of other avowed timewasters who in the last 7 years have determined to dirty the site, and who we have left in our wake. If I see someone describing TS as an entity, I usually either ban them to help them for their search for their perfect solution (a number of other blogs arose out of that) or recruit them to find out why things don’t happen as they naively think that they should (ditto).
What’s the story with guest posting at the moment? I’ve seen a couple of people say they’ve submitted things and just never heard back from anyone. Is this a holiday thing, or is there a backlog or what?
The way you are connecting this to the article on prisoner voting appears to be based on your prejudice against people in prison. I think your arguments about disability and the legislation are good, but I think you are undermining them by this comparison. For one, most people here will disagree with you that people in prison are lesser human beings when it comes to human rights, and so the conversation will get bogged down in that. You will also have a hard time arguing for human rights for one group by saying that some people are less worthy or more worthy than others.
“Why is it that those who have committed crimes are considered more worthy than non ACC disabled Kiwis?”
They’re not. People convicted of a crime can’t vote. Your partner, and myself (who also has a non-ACC covered disability and who the state routinely treats as second class), can vote. So in that instance your partner and myself have more rights and by your argument are more worthy.
To put it another way, the govt is saying that people with disabilities and people in prison are both not as worthy as the rest of NZ. Māori too, if you look at the Foreshore and Seabed Act. There’s probably lots of examples. That’s the real problem here, that the governments make these decisions (and that is down to our form of democracy IMO).
I agree that the 2013 law change should have been more vigourously debated and challenged on the left (across the spectrum in fact). I will read your comment if you link to it, thanks.
My suggestions start with taking the issue seriously rather than the kneejerk bullshit of “have them all at your place.” That really takes privatisation of penal policy to an obscene extreme and I doubt you’re worth debating with. I’ve had a few at my place over the years and had no problems with any of them. It’s not a solution though. It’s just Garth McVicar type bullshit.
I suspect Arthur Taylor would have objected to the removal of the right to take cases to the Human Rights Review Tribunal as well. I did, but you’ll just have to take my word for that. I’m totally sick of the bullshit argument that prisoners get a sweet life because the government is so generous with them, at the expense of whatever group. If you want to blame prisoners for how you and your partner got treated in court, that’s your problem.
“That really takes privatisation of penal policy to an obscene extreme and I doubt you’re worth debating with. ”
Back again with the personal insults again MR?
Is that the best you’ve got??
Okay.
A woman in her early sixties living in a state funded but privately owned facility goes on a hunger strike.
She had had over a decade since her disabling stoke, and had proved her strong will to live on more than one occasion.
However, a refusal by ‘the system’ to fund two pieces of equipment that would have made her life more tolerable drove her to go on a hunger strike.
Cue the ‘right to die with dignity’ crowd,
Now, if we have a convicted criminal who goes on a hunger strike, or attempts (or succeeds) to suicide in prison, do the ‘right to die with dignity’ crew step up and defend his rights?
Well? Do they?
No they damn well don’t.
Because a disabled person losing the will to live is , well, hey life’s a shit sandwich and its always lunchtime for those guys….
But a prisoner? MUST be because the ‘system’ is failing them.
And I don’t need you Mr Rawshark to tell me I’m not worthy…
Once a citizen is compelled by force to stay at Her Majesty’s leisure, the Crown implicitly accepts extensive, specific and commensurate responsibilities that it must fulfil.
It’s not a hard concept to understand if you think about it in any depth instead of living on fake outrage.
Actually it’s explicit, but I don’t think our Sensible Sentencing Trust advocate here would know the difference. I suspect the concept you mention is way out of her reach. Prisoners must lose their rights because someone’s cat ate a baby tui. Yeah, ridiculous. Prisoners must lose their rights because disabled people have a hard time. Just as bloody ridiculous, but neocon logic at its best. Iraq must be invaded because some Saudis directed from Afghanistan committed some atrocious attacks. Hmmm…maybe I’m the one that doesn’t see things clearly.
Our constitution and bill of rights states two important points:
[1] Under the title, ‘2. Democratic and Civil Rights’ it says,
‘As a New Zealand citizen over 18 you have the right to vote and to be a Member of Parliament’
AND
[2] The main part of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act states:
‘The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act places limits on the actions of those in government (including government departments, the judiciary, state-owned enterprises and local authorities) that interfere with the rights of individuals. The Bill of Rights Act also protects the rights of non-natural persons, for example, companies and incorporated societies.
Laws to be consistent with the Bill of Rights
All new legislation is examined to see if it is consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed by the Bill of Rights Act. If there are any inconsistencies, then the government is required to provide a justification for the limits placed on these rights. The Attorney-General must report any inconsistencies with the Bill of Rights Act to Parliament when the legislation is introduced.
Courts able to enforce the Bill of Rights
If you believe that someone in government has interfered with your rights, you can apply to the courts to consider your claim that your rights have been breached.’
——————-
Seems clear cut.
I think the parliament, just because it had the majority, rammed through a discriminatory law preventing prisoners from voting. So, where does it end? If this is lawful, then what is to stop the government from ramming through a law preventing beneficiaries or any other disadvantaged group from taking part in voting?
————
It would be interesting to read the verdict at the conclusion of this case.
—————-
It is not clear to me how the honourable Mr. Taylor has managed to link prisoners with beneficiaries and low income earners….with the threat that the latter two groups could find their right to vote….gone.
The link could be described as “people the government doesn’t like.” Taylor is saying that if the government can disenfranchise one group of people it doesn’t like, on the basis that it thinks they don’t deserve the vote, there’s nothing to prevent it disenfranchising other groups it finds undeserving.
There’s plenty of historical precedent (eg, property-based franchises), and there are certainly commenters on Kiwiblog who’ve made the claim that only nett taxpayers (ie, people who pay more in tax than they receive in government transfers) should be allowed to vote. It seems to me he has a point.
I’m wondering if it’s worse than that. Not just the people that NACT don’t like or believe don’t deserve to vote, but those that would more likely vote for other parties.
Is the Auckland Prison in Key’s electorate? I thought that was the implication but it wasn’t clear.
I don’t think he’ll win this case, but I agree he has a point. When someone is convicted of certain crimes, the punishment is often loss of liberty. It is not loss of citizenship. Martyn Findlay fixed this years ago and it’s a real retrograde step to see it back.
Seems like another cherished aim of left wing people the world over has taken a set back. The wealth tax on the super rich in France has basically been scrapped.
Did you get a belly laugh out of the Gaza massacre?
John Oliver did.
The late great Joan Rivers was, and Sacha Baron Cohen and Jerry Seinfeld are, notorious for finding amusement in the plight of the people of imprisoned Gaza and the Occupied Territories. But what some people regard as “serious” comedians are almost as bad. In this clip, John Oliver gets lots of laughs out of the bombing of Gaza. He treats it as if both sides are equally to blame. Kind of like the Germans and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising: both sides are equally to blame, equally crazy, so let’s laugh at the absurdity….
Lay off the marijuana, phillip. It’s affecting not only your temper, so embarrassingly evident in your behaviour on this forum recently, but also your judgement—as demonstrated by your naïve campaign on behalf of the Clintonesque Elizabeth Warren.
David Hicks to be declared innocent?
His critics should prepare to recant their smears
The rightwing campaign against David Hicks assumed his guilt, and made it seem a radical position to defend due process
by JEFF SPARROW, The Guardian, 26 January 2015
On 29 March 2007, then-Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine ran a victory lap.
“By pleading guilty to terrorism this week,” she wrote, “David Hicks has plastered egg all over the faces of his supporters – the naive hysterics who believe he is a tortured innocent as well as those glory-seeking civil rights lawyers who have attached themselves to his case.”
Now, according to Hicks’s lawyer, the US government no longer disputes his innocence and is expected to overturn his conviction within the month. Boy, do those civil rights campaigners look silly or what!
It’s easy to ridicule pundits like Devine (and it’s fun, too) but there are serious matters at stake. David Hicks spent years incarcerated without charge. The issues involved in detaining a man without trial are hardly obscure.
“I am merely in favour of due process,” wrote Mark Day in the Telegraph as early as 2002. “Until or unless the allegations against Hicks and Habib are tested in court, we cannot be sure of their accuracy. We all live by the rule that, if we are accused of doing wrong, we should be tried in a court. The facts should be tested; we are entitled to lawyers to defend us and we cannot be held for lengthy periods without charge.”
Scarcely a radical position, one would have thought. Yet, when initial news broke about Hicks’ capture, the Howard government launched a remarkable campaign against him, one more-or-less predicated on his guilt.
On 15 January 2002, attorney-general Daryl Williams declared Hicks “one of the world’s most dangerous people”, deserving of the treatment he received. Defence minister Robert Hill admitted he had no idea what law, in what country, Hicks had been broken – but agreed, nonetheless, he should be in custody. Alexander Downer explained Hicks deserved “harsh US retribution”.
Asked if he thought detaining Hicks indefinitely without trial was fair, John Howard replied, “Given the circumstances of Afghanistan I think it is, yes.”
Over the long years Hicks remained in Cuba, the Howard government continued to smear him, all the while dancing around the fundamental question: are Australian citizens entitled to due process or not? …..
And washing the blood stain from the toga – well my dear it’s hell. (For tender hearted people who must weep with every numbskull who hurts him or herself I say – he who lives with a gun, is lucky not to die from a gun.)
@ fender
It may have been that the racing industry and fine horse breeding industry is celebrating selling one of Patrick Hogan’s last at a good price, from one of his famous stallions. That is an industry employing people and we can well feel good about it being successful.
Maybe we can go into breeding industries and have them bear offspring three at a time. Look triplets of lovely little workshops for making doodads which are very much in demand etc. Thank goodness for the animals and crops otherwise nothing would be happening in NZ except people throwing symbols at one another.
I didn’t hear about the ass-it sales. I don’t listen to yek very often. Thanks for the heads up.
I know hedge fund managers buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,”
The Super Rich know that the edifice they’ve built is coming down. I guess they’ll be expecting us to manage their (our) farms next and serve them vintage champagne.
Just noting Key’s ad hominem in his response to Catton’s comments: “she’s a greenie therefore I don’t have to take any notice of what she says”
[lprent: Moved to OpenMike. While this looks pretty damn obvious paraphrasing of the actual comment to me, it does appear to have allowed some stupid diversion commentary going on. Meandering way off topic. ]
As you well know, the PM did not use the words you have set out as a quote. I have read what he actually said. What else could he be expected to say?
One thing I would note about journalists in the MSM, is that they never misquoted me, or as far as I could see any other politician. It would be regarded as dishonest to do so, but that not deter you in the slightest.
[lprent: Moved to OpenMike. While the comment you are referring to looks to be a pretty damn obvious paraphrasing of the actual comment to me, it does appear to have allowed some stupid diversion commentary going on. Meandering way off topic. ]
[lprent: I think that we can count PG as being an expert on the subject of how to misquote. However it looked to me like a paraphrase, especially since weka knows how to use blockquotes.
Don’t derail posts like this again. You can go away and whine about me now… ]
“She has been aligned with the Green Party, and that probably summarises the Green Party view of this Government. I don’t think that reflects what most New Zealanders perceive of the Government. If it was, they probably wouldn’t have voted for us in such large numbers… Key said he was not concerned with the level of international coverage Catton’s comments received.
That’s the quote and weka summarises it well – although I find it amusing that key is going down the “voted for us in large numbers” line – desperate for him to get that out so early on or perhaps it will be the mantra for the rest of the year.
Except that weka didn’t post as a summary, it was posted as a quote. Now I’m sure if Wayne had tried something like that you and weka would’ve be all over him for it.
I think this is another example of your problems with comprehension PG*. I think that it’s pretty obvious from my phrasing that I’m not quoting Key, but paraphrasing. Key would never say what I paraphrased, because the point of what he is doing is to say something like I said, but to say it in a way that doesn’t make people think he is being rude or mean ie it’s reasonable to write off an award winning NZ author’s perspectives because she belongs to a crazy/evil political party.
You are being dishonest pete because you know the obvious truth but still you can’t help, or resist, spreading dishonesty slurs against others for no reason other than bitterness.
I think that weka could have indeed been clearer that it was an interpretation rather than a direct quote. If I do that I try to somehow say that’s what I’m doing, or avoid using quotation marks.
But “dishonest misquote”? That implies an intention to mislead. If it was unfair interpretation of what Key said, then maybe. But it isn’t. So I’m not sure PG, how you have ruled out the possibility that weka has simply failed to live up your your blog commenting editorial standards regarding posting comments interpreting quotes.
Or, get a grip and go find something else to blow your pedant whistle at.
Maybe they were right to do so in those situations, maybe they weren’t. I don’t know. What I was meaning was that in this situation right here, this one, the one we’re talking about, you have no good reason to assume that weka was being dishonest.
“Maybe italics and no quote marks or single apostrophes on either end of the passage would avoid any accusations or confusions? Just a thought.”
Yeah, I’m wondering how to do that. I don’t think italics, because I use italics to quote directly a lot. But apostrophes instead of quotation marks would probably have been better.
I honestly didn’t even think about it though, because it seems obvious to me that my sentence is something that Key would never say. Next time I’ll put some cussing in.
Single quotes indicate that the line is ‘in the style of’, rather than a direct quote. So that’s the go. However, context is King. There can’t have been many readers who read it and thought it was real, especially with the word “greenie” rendered in italics.
And apparently even fewer readers who thought it was worth mentioning. Actually, just one sad pedant, as far as I can tell.
I don’t think Pete was being a pedant, because otherwise he would have corrected me and told me to use the right form of punctuation. He was being a trole.
“As you well know, the PM did not use the words you have set out as a quote. I have read what he actually said.”
I probably should have used ‘ ‘ instead of ” “. Would that have helped?
“What else could he be expected to say?”
Depends on whether you think he is speaking as the PM of NZ, or the leader of the National Party. The more he has to undermine dissenting voices, the less a real leader he is and is instead about the power.
If he was speaking as PM of NZ, he could have just left out all the stuff about the GP, commended her on her success as a writer, said he disgreed with her politics, and then addressed the points she raised and talked about how this govt intends to fix some of them (I’m talking about the stuff about how writers and intellectuals get treated in NZ).
He could have just ignored the neoliberal stuff, but of course that would present a dilemma because Catton was actually right. It’s also a problem that he believes he gets votes from being anti-intellectual. Like I said, he’s not the PM there, he’s grafting votes for the National party.
Booker prizewinning author Eleanor Catton, whose novel thrust the spotlight on goldrush Hokitika, has publicly backed the Green Party, saying she would be happy to be taxed more.
The launch was attended by The Luminaries author Catton, who urged people to give their party vote to the Greens.
“I want my children and my children’s children to be proud of the steps I took on their behalf to protect this country and what matters about it. That’s why I’m giving my party vote to the Greens.”
Key saying “She has been aligned with the Green Party, and that probably summarises the Green Party view of this Government” seems reasonably close to the mark to me.
Fuck off Pete. Wayne asked me what I thought Key could have done differently. I’ve given an example and detailed explanation. Your comment is completely irrelevant to that, so again, is this a comprehension problem or troling?
Read the whole comment, and then read Wayne’s and my conversation, and then it might start to make sense. Otherwise you can fuck right off.
The thing is Pete, when I do engage with you genuinely you can’t handle it (eg the sustainable farming conversation the other day). So really, why bother?
Christ on A Skateboard.
I haven’t had chance to view TS for a while.
I missed it. Yet I consoled myself by thinking oh by now they will have ejected PG Self Fak Checker by now and he will be working on getting booted at another site, per his rota.
Yet I come on here and he’s still here! My dreams of a decent read of TS without PG scrolitits, defleections, hijackings of threads, shattered!….Is it beyond the wit of Man to have the bloke exiled to his own gaff? I mean if Your New Zealand site is that bloody good, should he not be spending more time there!?
and being a member or a supporter of any of the other parties is now a reason to dismiss some award winning writer as a “loonie”, cause ” wink” ‘wink’ we all now how the ‘Greenies’ are “loonies” that have no Idea about the economy, or culture, or farming or anything? right ? right?
Dear PG, what has the National Government done or what new Laws has it enacted, or what new spending has it allowed that would and has benefitted all New Zealanders? Please ….just for once, untwist your knickers and answer.
Because, you see…if the PM and his Minions would have and would still act in the best of this country, to the betterment of your fellow country men and women than the PM would get accolades instead of just “Ack” ‘Ack’ ‘Ack” .
BTW. Pathic is the word that comes to mind when reading your whinging about ‘quotes’ ‘attributes’ and proper blog ettiquete.
“Key saying “She has been aligned with the Green Party, and that probably summarises the Green Party view of this Government” seems reasonably close to the mark to me.”
What mark is that Pete? The how to respond to criticism by unfairly questioning the motives of the critic instead of addressing their actual criticisms mark?
And the news outlets – TV1 and TV3 6pm news – don’t even mention it. Can you imagine if it was a Labour MP who was being investigated by the police.
a) the police would be leaking like a sieve with a dirty, great hole in the middle.
b) the MSM would be publicly howling with faux rage at such a dastardly happenstance,
But nah… it’s a Nat so we’ll keep quiet for as long as we can.
‘Increasingly, we live in a world where nothing makes any sense,” says Adam Curtis. “Events come and go like waves of a fever, leaving us confused and uncertain. Those in power tell stories to help us make sense of the complexity of reality, but those stories are increasingly unconvincing and hollow.”
So Curtis – who made The Century of Self, The Power of Nightmares, and The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream of Freedom – has made a new film, called Bitter Lake (BBC iPlayer, now), about why those stories stopped making sense, and to try to make sense of them. It’s available only on BBC’s iPlayer, because that means it doesn’t have to fit in with tedious constraints like schedules (it’s two hours 18 minutes long) or conventional ideas about what television should look like.
Just been listening to Radio Propaganda Hour,
They say Furher keys to announce tomorrow the selling off of 20,000 stated owned homes. Where are people going to live? What are unemployed, dis advantaged etc etc going to do?:
Is The Furher going to provide a cardboard box for the evictees or park benches?
He frees up this block of social housing so his mates from his class and fellow Nats, can pile in, make a profit, and live there.
********* Social Cleansing or What!
Can we ask The Greeks for a Moral Conscience Loan?
Interesting article though. We could be doing so much better with the research if it were legal.
One thing that many people seem to miss, and I’m not sure how research handles this, but people react to the drug differently. To suggest that cannabis is an anti-anxiety drug completely ignores the well-know paranoia phenomenom.
I’d not heard of the yips before. I wonder if it affects other people using their bodies in extreme ways, or if it’s associated with performance and competition.
Ok that appeared to be some server bots going a bit crazy. They jammed the database at 128 threads running (usually we peak at 12).
The system chopped a number of B level IP ranges off accessing this system. However it wasn’t hair trigger enough to do that before it jammed at the database.
I ran across a recent essay from The Brothers Krynn, which attempts to map common horror monsters onto the Seven Deadly Sins: https://canadianculturecorner.substack.com/p/horror-monsters-and-vice My interest, however, is not in the meat of the piece, but rather the opening paragraph: It is an interesting fact that in recent decades, Vampires have ...
Buzz from the Beehive Transport Minister Simeon Brown dutifully issued advice to all road users to keep safe on our roads during the Easter weekend. He encouraged them to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. ...
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Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand’s biggest-ever political donations scandal is finally at an end. But what is the conclusion? No one can really be sure. The Court of Appeal released its judgement on Tuesday about the Serious Fraud Office case against the NZ First Foundation. On ...
In 2015, then-Prime Minister John Key announced plans for a huge ocean sanctuary around the Kermadec Islands, banning fishing and mining from 15% of Aotearoa's EEZ. It was bold, it was ambitious, and it suggested that National might actually care about the environment. Except they fucked it up: Key failed ...
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Buzz from the Beehive Waves of rain are set to lash much of the North Island during Easter Weekend as a low-pressure system forms east of New Zealand, according to a weather forecast published in the past day or so. Niwa was warning of a “moisture-laden” long weekend, with rain expected ...
Look around us…Nicola Willis’ promises of balancing the books, of cutting spending without reducing services, and of delivering game changing tax cuts are disappearing before her eyes.Everyday we see stories of violent crime ending in horrific injuries, or worse. The cost of living worsens, whereas the PM claimed renters would ...
TL;DR: My top six news of note on the morning of Thursday, March 28 include:The Government will have to borrow between $10 billion to $15 billion more than previously expected in order to make up for a slowing economy and to pay for $14.9 billion of tax cuts, according to ...
This story by Naveena Sadasivam and Kate Yoder was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively ...
Should landlords be able to deduct the interest on the loans they take out to bankroll their property speculation? The US Senate Budget Committee and Bloomberg News don’t think this is a good idea, for reasons set out below. Regardless, our coalition government has been burning through a ton of ...
Treasury’s first report on the economy since the change of government presents a damning indictment of Labour’s economic management. The problem for National is that it is so damning that logically, coupled with a rapidly slowing economy, Finance Minister Nicola Willis should respond to it by postponing or even cancelling ...
Budget tensions are becoming evident within the Coalition Government. Winston Peters made numerous political points in his speech to the NZF annual conference. But the attack on his own government’s fiscal policies raised issues of substance. ‘Today in the Sunday Star Times, journalist and former advisor to the Labour ...
Buzz from the Beehive The media – sure enough – have been binging on Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ release of the Budget Policy Statement and a statement headed Government announces Budget priorities This assures us – or rather, this parrots the Luxon team mantra – that the Budget “will deliver ...
The Ides of March brought me COVID followed by a bereavement. No wonder they tell you to be careful of them.I’m home now and have resumed the interrupted recuperation. Very much looking forward to getting back to regular things. Meanwhile, some thoughts…OneThis new Prime Minister guy just keeps getting more dire. ...
News that the Chinese ATP 40 cyber-hacking unit penetrated parliamentary internet networks in 2021 has renewed concerns about the PRC’s malign intentions in Aotearoa. But is the hack that significant given the length of time that has passed since its … Continue reading → ...
When Parliament passed the Intelligence and security Act in 2017, they assured us all that it was full of safeguards. Any intrusive surveillance of New Zealanders would be subject to a "triple lock", requiring the approval of the Minister and (supposedly independent) Commissioner of Intelligence Warrants, as well as post-facto ...
Eric Crampton writes – Richard Harman’s Politik newsletter provides a bit of the context that ought to have been showing up in other media reports on potential reductions in public service staffing. Media has been reporting on staffing cuts on the order of about 7%. Is that ...
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Don Brash writes – As everybody who is not blind and deaf is aware, there is a huge political preoccupation with climate change at the moment, a widespread (though by no means unanimous) belief that global temperatures are rising mainly as a result of the greenhouse gases created ...
TL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy on Wednesday, March 27 include:Chris Bishop laid out his vision for filling Aotearoa-NZ’s $100 billion infrastructure deficit in a speech yesterday, emphasising user pays and private funding, but failed to say how to achieve bipartisanship on population, public borrowing and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson and former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins have been conveying how unhappy they are with the tax system. Last week in his valedictory speech, Robertson called for the introduction of a wealth or capital gains tax. And this week Hipkins ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Buzz from the Beehive China has loomed large in Beehive considerations over the past 24 hours, largely because of that country’s mischief-making in the cyber espionage department. Two media statements emerged on that subject hard on the heels of the PM baulking at questions put to him on RNZ’s Morning ...
Chris Trotter writes – WHY IS THE NATIONAL PARTY doing so much for landlords, property developers, trucking, and construction companies, and so little for everybody who isn’t already pretty well-off? It’s as if protecting landlords’ investments and building apartments and roads now constitute the whole of National’s ...
Bryce Edwards writes – When she was campaigning to be Minister of Finance last year, Nicola Willis pledged that she would resign from the job if she failed to deliver tax cuts in her first Budget. Now, it’s that pledge, along with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s ...
Robert MacCulloch writes – The Reserve Bank has doubled staff numbers in five years to 510, with personnel costs rising to $80 million in 2023 from $32 million in 2018 – up by a whopping 150%. I guess when you print $50 billion and flood markets with liquidity, ...
The furore. In case you didn’t notice there was a controversy in the weekend involving dolphins in a little town off the South Island. Don’t panic, they haven’t declared independence and resumed whaling, this was simply a sailing event.The problem began when racing was cancelled on the opening day of ...
For 20 years or more, the case for a meaningful capital tax gains has been mulled over and analysed to death, including by the tax working group chaired by Sir Michael Cullen. More than once, the International Monetary Fund has said a CGT would be a good idea for New ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: The Public Health Communications Centre (PHCC) call for urgent preventive action and a risk assessment survey of long covid in this briefing noteLocal scoop: NZ road deaths surpass OECD rates, so why is the govt reversing safety plans? ...
This story was originally published by Grist and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. This story is part of a collaboration with Grist and WABE to demystify the Georgia Public Service Commission, the small but powerful state-elected board that makes critical decisions about everything from raising ...
This is a guest post from Robert McLachlan Global warming is accelerating; 2023 was off the charts. We need to stop burning fossil fuels. In New Zealand, transport accounts for half of all fossil fuels burnt. In the Emissions Reduction Plan, transport emissions fall 41% by 2035. As the ...
Labour productivity has been receding rapidly over the past two years, reversing a post-lockdown rise. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things to note in Aotearoa’s political economy as at 6:26am on Tuesday, March 26 include:Workers have been treading water in output per hour worked for 12 years, ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 2 include:Today, Parliament resumes sitting at 2pm for the second week of a two-week session. Officials for SIS and GCSB report their annual reviews in public to the Intelligence and Security Select Committee from 5.10pm.Tomorrow, ...
Faced with a barrage of criticism over the promised tax cuts from usually supportive commentators, Finance Minister Nicola Willis yesterday reaffirmed her intention to include them in this year’s Budget. The Government is up against it over the cuts just about every way it turns. Commentators like Fran O’Sullivan, Matthew ...
Here’s my pick of today’s substack posts as of 6:26pm on Monday, March 25: writes via his substack that Market-rate housing will make your city cheaper writes via his substack about the problems talking to double-cab ute (truck) drivers about their vehicles. today about moments of radicalisation in ...
Buzz from the Beehive Just before Christmas, Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered something that was pitched as a mini-budget and brayed about the decisive action being taken to repair the Government books and support income tax relief in Budget 2024. In a statement headed Fiscal repair job underway. she introduced ...
My sister Belinda asked Dad yesterday what one word would describe Mum best. He said: vivacious.If you only knew her from the photos on the slideshow we've made for today,you might wonder about that, because the camera tended to lie with Mum.If ever she saw a camera pointed at her, she ...
There are two major public consultations closing in the next week, Auckland Council’s Long Term Plan (LTP), and the draft Government Policy Statement on Land Transport (GPS). Closing dates and times: LTP closes Thursday 28 February, at 11.59pm – a minute to midnight! GPS closes Tuesday 2 April, at 12pm noon – note that’s ...
From Kiwiblog’s David Farrar – Bryce Wilkinson writes: Senior Fellow Bryce Wilkinson’s analysis reveals that since March 2009, New Zealand has spent $158 billion more overseas than it has earned, but its NIIP has only fallen by $32 billion.Statistics New Zealand shows that receipts from overseas reinsurers have ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition? Brian Easton writes – The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could ...
Dear Nicola Willis,Right now you’ve probably got lots of competing demands coming at you. Ministers who’ve inherited quite a mess, or so you’ve told us, looking for money in the budget to improve things. I imagine that’s why they came to parliament - to make things better.You’ll have to make ...
The Local Government, Transport and Auckland Minister hasthreatened councils with intervention if they don’t merge water assets to take them off balance sheet, just as the now-repealed Three Waters plan directed. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: My six things of note this morning for Monday, March 25 include:Simeon ...
A listing of 36 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 17, 2024 thru Sat, March 23, 2024. Story of the week Thanks to John Mason having the stamina to sit down to watch "Climate - the Movie" ...
This morning the Q&A programme had Simeon Brown on to talk about National’s replacement for Three Waters. In case anyone’s forgotten the three are - drinking water, waste water, and sewerage. It’s quite important not to get them mixed up. In much the same way that you wouldn’t want to ...
Today’s newsletter comes with a mini-podcast conversation between me and my buddy Liv Tennet, talking about her time as a child actor in Lord of the Rings. It’s a conversation with a lot of giggles as she talks about falling off a horse, and becoming a meme. Read ...
The Desmog Climate Disinformation Database documents, "individuals and organisations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming." It's a who's who of the organised climate change denial movement, in other words. In ...
Bob Edlin writes – A High Court judge has decided miscreants who have mana – or who claim to have mana – should be treated differently from miscreants who have none. It’s a ruling that suggests indigenous law-breakers have a better chance of securing a discharge without conviction ...
Welcome to the first, and possibly last, edition of Brickbats, Bouquets and Bull’s Wool. In which I’ll take a look at the events of the last week or so, and rate them.In such ratings the numbers usually have more to do with the opinions of the reviewer, than the actual ...
Roger Partridge writes – My earlier column this month, New Zealand’s highest court could be facing a turning point, prompted a flood of feedback from business readers and lawyers alike. A common query was what Parliament can do to restrain an overreaching judiciary. This week I discuss two steps Parliament ...
TL;DR: In today’s ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.16pm on Friday, March 22: writes about New Zealand's Building Boom—And What the World Must Learn From It over at his substack. challenges the Auckland Council’s use of a 3.8 degrees of warming forecast to oppose a wave-park and data centre project ...
Is she hinting that the Coalition Government will have to back down on key promises it made in Opposition?The Minister of Finance, Nicola Willis, is telling an evolving story about her fiscal challenges. In Opposition she was confident that she could deliver her promised income tax cuts. Appointed minister, she ...
Buzz from the Beehive Ministers of the Crown have drawn attention to one sector of the science sector which is unlikely to be subjected to heavy spending cuts, a state-funded broadcaster which is doing nicely, thank you, and a sporting event that had $5.4 million from the public purse puffed ...
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre sensors allow continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). The sensor is applied to the back of the patient’s arm, with a thin filament under the skin measuring glucose levels constantly. But it costs around $100 per sensor and must be replaced once every 14 days. Photo by BSIP/Universal Images ...
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) recently released a report in which he exposes the existence of a foreign intelligence partner-controlled technological “capability” inside the headquarters of the GCSB, NZ’s 5 Eyes-affiliated signals intelligence collection and analysis agency. … Continue reading → ...
Peter Dunne writes – Nearly three decades after the introduction of MMP and multiparty governments there should be a greater level of understanding about their finer points than often appears to be the case. The reaction to the despicable outburst from the Deputy Prime Minister at the weekend highlights ...
The sweet kisses from fruit of summerHave slowly been turning dullerYou say, "those times"And "remember the daysWhen we went outside and there still was the shade?"Taking no reason into play…Autumn. Clear, blue days shortening to longer nights, growing colder. Aotearoa.That’s us. The temperature dropping, the looming car crash - so ...
Bryce Edwards writes – “It is often said that behind every great man is a great woman”. This is the pitch by the National Party Botany electorate branch to attend their “Ladies Afternoon Tea with Amanda Luxon”. For $110 including GST, you can turn up on Saturday 20 April ...
David Farrar writes – The Electoral Commission has published the expense returns for political parties for the 2023 election. I’ve put them in a table with how many votes a party got so we can see the spend per vote. National only spent $3.34 for every vote they got, almost ...
Winston Peters’ headline-making actions over the past week may have been a show of political power intended to strengthen his hand in Budget negotiations. It was no accident that his State of the Nation speech was as it was. He made it as New Zealand First Leader, not as Deputy ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:Former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson bowed out of politics this week, giving a series of exit ...
Graham Adams writes — If you love the law or sausages, as the saying goes, best not to look too closely at how they are made. And after watching the orgy of self-pity when Newshub’s closure was announced on February 28, television journalism should definitely be added to the list of those ...
Venerable New Zealand political commentator, Chris Trotter (https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/), is a sad creature these days. Once one of the most reliable Leftist writers out there – Economic Left at that – Trotter seems to have absorbed the worldview of Auckland culture-war obsessives. It is not for me to categorise what he ...
The Coalition Government’s plan to ‘get Auckland moving’ is a cuts cover-up that will ultimately cost Aucklanders more to move around the city, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Slashing the Ministry of Pacific Peoples by 40% will have a devastating impact on pacific communities and further highlights how little this government cares about anything other than cutting taxes for the wealthiest few. ...
Labour has proposed an urgent inquiry to investigate the ever-increasing profits of supermarkets, aiming to lower costs for shoppers and food producers alike, says Labour Spokesperson for Commerce and Consumer Affairs Arena Williams and Primary Production Spokesperson Cushla Tangaere-Manuel. ...
With 14% of jobs on the line at the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, the responsible Minister Melissa Lee is failing to stand up for the very communities she’s meant to be representing. ...
COURT OF APPEAL: TRIFECTA OF VICTORY FOR NZ FIRST, TRIFECTA OF FAILURE FOR OPPONENTS For the third time since April 2020, New Zealand First has defeated the Serious Fraud Office and all those complicit in a malicious attack against a political party going about its lawful business in a lawful ...
The Green Party stands with people who live in public housing, people in dire housing need, experts and advocates in demanding better than the Government’s archaic approach to housing those who need our support the most. ...
New Zealand has recently lost the hosting rights of some major international sporting events including the America’s Cup, the Rugby Championship, Netball World Cup, and the Wellington Sevens. We are now at a huge risk of losing SailGP as well. And it won’t stop there. The recent issues with SailGP ...
A Member’s Bill drawn this week would modernise insurance law and make things fairer and more transparent for consumers, Christchurch Central MP Duncan Webb said. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues has confirmed she was aware of funding issues in mid-December and did nothing to stop it. On 14 March, she signed off on changes that were announced and implemented on 18 March without any consultation with disability communities. ...
Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter says her members' bill is an opportunity for the coalition government to plug the gap in electric vehicle incentives. ...
The National Government continues to talk about irresponsible tax cuts that will only drive up inflation, despite the country entering a technical recession. ...
The Minister for Disability Issues must act urgently to reinstate flexibility around the funding for disability support and apologise to disabled carers. ...
This story has been initiated by a leftie shill reporter who proactively sought to call a member of a former band, which disbanded twelve years ago, give their biased appraisal of what was said in my speech, and concocted a ham-fisted attempt at a story that does nothing but show ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Many in the mainstream media have taken what was said in New Zealand First’s State of the Nation Speech in Palmerston North on Sunday and deliberately, deceitfully, and ignorantly misrepresented what I said and why I said it. The headlines and commentary on the news stated that I compared ‘co-governance ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
Good afternoon. Thank you for, in your very busy lives, turning up to this meeting today. On October 14th last year New Zealanders overwhelmingly voted for change. That is exactly what this new government is bringing. New Zealand First campaigned to ‘take back our country’ and stop the disastrous economic ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed the passing of legislation to move light electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) into the road user charges system from 1 April. “It was always intended that EVs and PHEVs would be exempt from road user charges until they reached two ...
New Zealand is strengthening its ability to combat illegal fishing outside its domestic waters and beef up regulation for its own commercial fishers in international waters through a Bill which had its first reading in Parliament today. The Fisheries (International Fishing and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2023 sets out stronger ...
Economists Carl Hansen and Professor Prasanna Gai have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Monetary Policy Committee, Finance Minister Nicola Willis announced today. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is the independent decision-making body that sets the Official Cash Rate which determines interest rates. Carl Hansen, the executive director of Capital ...
Apartment owners and buyers will soon have greater protections as further changes to the law on unit titles come into effect, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Act had already introduced some changes in December 2022 and May 2023, and ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters will travel to Egypt and Europe from this weekend. “This travel will focus on a range of New Zealand’s traditional diplomatic and security partnerships while enabling broad engagement on the urgent situation in Gaza,” Mr Peters says. Mr Peters will attend the NATO Foreign ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown is encouraging all road users to stay safe, plan their journeys ahead of time, and be patient with other drivers while travelling around this Easter long weekend. “Road safety is a responsibility we all share, and with increased traffic on our roads expected this Easter we ...
About 1.4 million New Zealanders will receive cost of living relief through increased government assistance from April 1 909,000 pensioners get a boost to Superannuation, including 5000 veterans 371,000 working-age beneficiaries will get higher payments 45,000 students will see an increase in their allowance Over a quarter of New Zealanders ...
Ensuring social housing is being provided to those with the greatest needs is front of mind as the Government restarts social housing tenancy reviews, Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka says. “Our relentless focus on building a strong economy is to ensure we can deliver better public services such as social ...
The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary will not go ahead, with Cabinet deciding to stop work on the proposed reserve and remove the Bill that would have established it from Parliament’s order paper. “The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill would have created a 620,000 sq km economic no-go zone,” Oceans and Fisheries Minister ...
Dam safety regulations are being amended so that smaller dams won’t be subject to excessive compliance costs, Minister for Building and Construction Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on reducing costs and removing unnecessary red tape so we can get the economy back on track. “Dam safety regulations ...
The coalition Government is expanding the medium-scale adverse event classification to parts of the North Island as dry weather conditions persist, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced today. “I have made the decision to expand the medium-scale adverse event classification already in place for parts of the South Island to also cover the ...
The passing of legislation giving effect to coalition Government tax commitments has been welcomed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill will help place New Zealand on a more secure economic footing, improve outcomes for New Zealanders, and make our tax system ...
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Judith Collins and Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds today announced plans to transform our science and university sectors to boost the economy. Two advisory groups, chaired by Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, will advise the Government on how these sectors can play a greater ...
The Budget will deliver urgently-needed tax relief to hard-working New Zealanders while putting the government’s finances back on a sustainable track, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The Finance Minister made the comments at the release of the Budget Policy Statement setting out the Government’s Budget objectives. “The coalition Government intends ...
The coalition Government will look at options to address a zoning issue that limits how much financial support Queenstown residents can get for accommodation. Cabinet has agreed on a response to the Petitions Committee, which had recommended the geographic information MSD uses to determine how much accommodation supplement can be ...
Cabinet has agreed to a short extension to the final reporting timeframe for the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care from 28 March 2024 to 26 June 2024, Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “The Royal Commission wrote to me on 16 February 2024, requesting that I consider an ...
The coalition Government is delivering an $18 million boost to New Zealanders needing to travel for specialist health treatment, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says. “These changes are long overdue – the National Travel Assistance (NTA) scheme saw its last increase to mileage and accommodation rates way back in 2009. ...
The Government is recognising the innovative and rising talent in New Zealand’s growing space sector, with the Prime Minister and Space Minister Judith Collins announcing the new Prime Minister’s Prizes for Space today. “New Zealand has a growing reputation as a high-value partner for space missions and research. I am ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed New Zealand’s concerns about cyber activity have been conveyed directly to the Chinese Government. “The Prime Minister and Minister Collins have expressed concerns today about malicious cyber activity, attributed to groups sponsored by the Chinese Government, targeting democratic institutions in both New ...
Independent Reviewers appointed for School Property Inquiry Education Minister Erica Stanford today announced the appointment of three independent reviewers to lead the Ministerial Inquiry into the Ministry of Education’s School Property Function. The Inquiry will be led by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Murray McCully. “There is a clear need ...
State Highway 1 across the Brynderwyns will be open for Easter weekend, with work currently underway to ensure the resilience of this critical route being paused for Easter Weekend to allow holiday makers to travel north, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Today I visited the Brynderwyn Hills construction site, where ...
Introduction Good morning to you all, and thanks for having me bright and early today. I am absolutely delighted to be the Minister for Infrastructure alongside the Minister of Housing and Resource Management Reform. I know the Prime Minister sees the three roles as closely connected and he wants me ...
New Zealand stands with the United Kingdom in its condemnation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-backed malicious cyber activity impacting its Electoral Commission and targeting Members of the UK Parliament. “The use of cyber-enabled espionage operations to interfere with democratic institutions and processes anywhere is unacceptable,” Minister Responsible for ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Defence Minister Judith Collins today announced New Zealand will provide logistics support for the upcoming Solomon Islands election. “We’re sending a team of New Zealand Defence Force personnel and two NH90 helicopters to provide logistics support for the election on 17 April, at the request ...
The European Union Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill received Royal Assent today, completing the process for New Zealand’s ratification of its free trade agreement with the European Union. “I am pleased to announce that today, in a small ceremony at the Beehive, New Zealand notified the European Union ...
Public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has concluded, Internal Affairs Minister Hon Brooke van Velden says. “I have been advised that there were over 11,000 submissions made through the Royal Commission’s online consultation portal.” Expanding the scope of the Royal Commission of ...
Hardworking families are set to benefit from a new credit to help them meet their early childcare education (ECE) costs, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. From 1 July, parents and caregivers of young children will be supported to manage the rising cost of living with a partial reimbursement of their ...
A specialised Independent Technical Advisory Group (ITAG) tasked with preparing and publishing independent non-binding advice on the design of a "green" (sustainable finance) taxonomy rulebook is being established, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Comprising experts and market participants, the ITAG's primary goal is to deliver comprehensive recommendations to the ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins has thanked the Chief of Army, Major General John Boswell, DSD, for his service as he leaves the Army after 40 years. “I would like to thank Major General Boswell for his contribution to the Army and the wider New Zealand Defence Force, undertaking many different ...
25 March 2024 Minister to meet Australian counterparts and Manufacturing Industry Leaders Small Business, Manufacturing, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly will travel to Australia for a series of bi-lateral meetings and manufacturing visits. During the visit, Minister Bayly will meet with his Australian counterparts, Senator Tim Ayres, Ed ...
Government commits almost $3 million for period products in schools The Coalition Government has committed $2.9 million to ensure intermediate and secondary schools continue providing period products to those who need them, Minister of Education Erica Stanford announced today. “This is an issue of dignity and ensuring young women don’t ...
Good morning, it’s great to be here. First, I would like to acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of Building Surveyors and thank you for the opportunity to be here this morning. I would like to use this opportunity to outline the Government’s ambitious plan and what we hope to ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti has announced the Government’s commitment to the Auckland Secondary Schools Māori and Pacific Islands Cultural Festival, more commonly known as Polyfest. “The Ministry for Pacific Peoples is a longtime supporter of Polyfest and, as it celebrates 49 years in 2024, I’m proud to ...
Before moving onto the substance of today’s address, I want to recognise the very significant and ongoing contribution the Breast Cancer Foundation makes to support the lives of New Zealand women and their families living with breast cancer. I very much enjoy working with you. I also want to recognise ...
New Zealand has notched up a first with the launch of University of Canterbury research to the International Space Station, Science, Innovation and Technology and Space Minister Judith Collins says. The hardware, developed by Dr Sarah Kessans, is designed to operate autonomously in orbit, allowing scientists on Earth to study ...
Introduction Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today and I’m sorry I can’t be there in person. Yesterday I started in Wellington for Breakfast TV, spoke to a property conference in Auckland, and finished the day speaking to local government in Christchurch, so it would have been ...
The Coalition Government is contributing more than $1 million to support the establishment of an emergency multi-agency coordination centre in Northland. Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell announced the contribution today during a visit of the Whangārei site where the facility will be constructed. “Northland has faced a number ...
New Zealanders have enjoyed a broader range of voices telling the story of Aotearoa thanks to the creation of Whakaata Māori 20 years ago, says Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka. The minister spoke at a celebration marking the national indigenous media organisation’s 20th anniversary at their studio in Auckland on ...
Commercial catch limits for some fisheries have been increased following a review showing stocks are healthy and abundant, Ocean and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The changes, along with some other catch limit changes and management settings, begin coming into effect from 1 April 2024. "Regular biannual reviews of fish ...
COMMENTARY:By Ronny Kareni Since the atrocious footage of the suffering of an indigenous Papuan man reverberates in the heart of Puncak by the brute force of Indonesia’s army in early February, shocking tactics deployed by those in power to silence critics has been unfolding. Nowhere is this more evident ...
Analysis - Nicola Willis is holding firm on tax cuts despite the economic outlook being worse than forecast and critics urging her to wait, writes Peter Wilson for The Week In Politics. ...
Opposition MPs and unions are criticising a proposal by New Zealand’s Ministry of Pacific Peoples to cut staff by 40 percent. The country’s largest trade union — The Public Service Association — says the ministry has informed staff that it is looking to shed 63 of 156 positions. Opposition MPs ...
A poem by Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook 2024 featured poet Carin Smeaton. Daughtr of the 90s when she gets promoted to usherette a baby blu eel carries her all the way up to mothership she’s hovering high she lets the underaged in to see keanu reeves she lets the only lonely ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Keith Rankin, trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. My earlier article – Can ‘Good’ be the Greater Evil? – looked at the issue of how wars should end, and how Good versus Evil ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 AMMA by Saraid de Silva (Moa Press, $38)A stunning debut novel reviewed by Brannavan ...
From Steve Martin to Ricky Stanicky, a pick’n’mix of things worth watching and listening to this long weekend. This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. If you’re at a loss for something to occupy yourself with this Easter, don’t panic: The Spinoff’s got ...
Jesus had dinner with his 12 disciples right before he died. Noted historian Madeleine Chapman finds out who really deserved to be there.First published in 2018 but let’s be honest, the subject is timeless. As you sit on your couch this Easter Sunday, eating a chocolate egg you know ...
The newly-promoted Northern League club is on a mission to return to the National League for the first time in two decades. Plenty about domestic football in New Zealand has changed in that time – but the sense that this amateur competition is not an entirely level playing field remains. ...
Comment: Every year on February 2, a dozen men in tuxedos and top hats approach the burrow of a groundhog in Gobbler’s Knob, Pennsylvania and entice the beaver-like rodent to emerge and predict the weather. If the groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, sees its own shadow when it is summoned, legend ...
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Auckland Council has put a deadline on new weather-impacted property owners applying for categorisation as government funding looks set to run out. Councillors have voted to support a deadline of September 30 for property owners who haven’t accessed support to come forward and engage with the council’s recovery office. It ...
NONFICTION 1 BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin Random House, $40) “It’s official,” wrote Dann nine days ago in the Herald, where he works as business editor at large, “we’re in recession.” Yeah, great. He delivered the bad stats: “GDP fell 0.1 percent in the December 2023 quarter, compared with ...
By Anneke Smith, RNZ News political reporter A petition urging the New Zealand government to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people has been tabled in the House. More than 200 people gathered on Parliament’s forecourt today and they were met by MPs from Labour, the Greens and Te ...
Pacific Media Watch The Paris-based global media freedom watchdog RSF (Reporters Without Borders) has appealed for information about the “disappearance” of Palestinian journalist Bayan Abusultan. She was reportedly last seen on March 19 among people “sequestered” in this week’s raid and siege of Al Shifa hospital by Israeli troops in ...
EDITORIAL:The Jakarta Post It happens again and again; indigenous Papuans fall victim to Indonesian soldiers. This time, we have photographic evidence for the brutality, with videos on social media showing a Papuan man being tortured by a group of plainclothes men alleged to be the Indonesian Military (TNI) members. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn J. Whitaker, Director of the Wesley Centre for Theology, Ethics, and Public Policy & Associate Professor, New Testament, Pilgrim Theological College, University of Divinity A strange and eclectic range of activities takes place across these few weeks of the year. Some ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Panizza Allmark, Professor Visual & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University It’s Easter weekend, which means many of us will be kicking back with the greatest hits on repeat. But whether you’re a boomer, or an ‘80s or ’90s kid, you might be ...
RNZ Pacific Fiji’s Acting Public Prosecutor has filed an appeal against the sentences of former prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama and suspended police chief Sitiveni Qiliho in their corruption case. Bainimarama was granted an absolute discharge for attempting to pervert the course of justice while Qiliho received a conditional discharge with ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Senior Lecturer and General Dentist, School of Dentistry, The University of Queensland Casezy idea/Shutterstock How does toothpaste work? What did people use before toothpaste was invented? – Amelia, age 7, Meanjin (Brisbane) Thanks for your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brett Hallam, Associate professor, UNSW Sydney IM Imagery/Shutterstock Solar SunShot is well named. The Australian government announced today it would plough A$1 billion into bringing back solar manufacturing to Australia, boosting energy security, swapping coal and gas jobs for those ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Dix, Research Fellow in Nutrition & Dietetics, The University of Queensland Easter is the time for chocolate. The shops are full of fantastically packaged and shiny chocolates in all shapes and sizes, making trips to the supermarket with children more challenging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emma Felton, Adjunct Senior Researcher, University of South Australia Even in a stubborn cost-of-living crisis, it seems there’s one luxury most Australians won’t sacrifice – their daily cup of coffee. Coffee sales have largely remained stable, even as financial pressures have ...
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if little went on tvnz breakfast to hose down expectations about his speech tomorrow..?
..mission-accomplished..!
Don’t be so pessimistic. Andrew Little the orator will win hearts and minds tomorrow. He has the fulsome support of the caucus, the members and the unions. He will not stumble like Shearer and will not be as arrogant and pompous as The Cunliffe. He will give a polished performance and get the polls rising. Surely?
And John Key will sell his snake oil again.
key may surprise/leave little flat-footed..
..key is speaking about social-housing..
..he’s gonna have to say/promise something..have a plan..
..something that will make the sell-off of state houses slightly more palatable..
..seeming to be more just an adjustment..
..that’s what i’m picking..
..whereas little i see as just assuring the business-elites that they have nothing to fear from a little-led labour..
..that’s what i’m picking..
Sure, but it will still be snake oil and not the full story. There will be ulterior motives. There will be half-truths. There will be deception. There will facts claimed which are anything but. There will be diversions courtesy of weak-arse jokes (he is never funny, even with partisan hat placed to side).
But yes you’re right – he could step into Labour territory again and announce the building of 5,000 state houses this year. That would in fact be something – 5,000 state houses of 4-5 bedrooms, 300m2 size, double-internal access garage, 20 toilets, media room, office, butlers pantry and jet-ski parking space.
Yes Phil U. Key will be rewarding his ilk by kicking out tenants in the state houses in the hills above Mission Bay. There’s gold in them there hills, gold to be plundered by his rich mates. South Auckland is where the poor belong he will thinking but not saying.
yr ‘concern’ is indeed touching..
Have you found your moral compass fisiani or your suffering from heat stroke. I suspect the later. My advice where a sun hat on your bald head.
Dear Fisiani,
Don’t be so pessimistic. John Key the orator will win hearts and minds tomorrow. He has the fulsome support of the caucus, the members and the Landowners. He will not stumble and will not be arrogant and pompous. He will give a polished performance and get the polls rising. Surely?
there i fixed it for you. Feeling betterer now? 🙂
Key does not have to win hearts and minds. He has won them already. Tomorrow is about consolidation and reaffirmation.
Betterer???
a few days ago, while enjoying a local cider and listening to some songs, we revisited this lovely tune.
the thes’ the beat(en) generation.
youtube.com/watch?v=wYb2kx6CHsM
this is a stripped back acoustic version.
originally released in 1988, its is perhaps more poignant now.
random lyric
“youth, o youth, are being seduced, by the greedy hands of politics and half truths.
… reared on a diet of prejudice and misinformation ”
genius.
i urge you to take 3 1/2 mins from your lives and have a listen
Just posted this on the “Image of Farming” thread and repeat it here …….
Today’s polemic rant from yet another Fed Farmers officer ….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/65442334/stop-putting-boot-into-farmers-over-drought
There are most of the main issues in there of course, but the elephant in the room imo, is the over-arching theme about taking from / altering the environment to suit farming. In this regard the writer points to the most cows in Israel and the biggest dairy farm in Saudi Arabia, both dry places of course, as if these somehow provide an argument for doing what is being done in NZ i.e. altering and eating the environment… “they are doing it so why aren’t we?”. That is no argument. At all.
We have been eating and altering the environment for the last 150 years (and further back prior to Euro and Asian invasion). The effects have been severely degraded rivers, virtually zero forests left with subsequent plant and animal life extinguishment, the list goes on.
Why are we continuing to eat the environment when we have seen the effects and are doing way too little to reverse things?
The writers view is understandable when it comes from his subjective position however it completely misses the big picture – you know, the one that involves leaving a better place for our mokopuna, which we in NZ have never done! We have never left the land in better condition than when we got it. In 150 years. Sobering fact that we should dwell on.
…
How about this – we ban all bare land and let mother nature revert. Imagine NZ with full native bush cover. Incredible. Mind-blowing. (of course there are some issues to be dealt with in such a plan)….. *sigh*
Come vto you told me to think once you should try some of you’re own medicine. He didn’t appear to be asking for any more than for people to find out the truth about about drought relief and other factors around farming .
Sure. Pet topic of mine so feel free to discount as you see fit, though the above is my opinion based on knowing plenty heaps about drought, its relief, and farming.
You know mr waghorn, the really good thing is that this debate has finally sparked up to an extent where I think the raising of the issues and the initial anger and yelling between the parties has been dealt with and now the debate moves to a calmer and more reasoned debate, as you point out the writer points out… That is very good.
Imo though the thing to watch our for is that we don’t address the big picture on how need to deal with the planet and it gets tied down into technical details that exist in the current paradigm. The paradigm needs changing. This is where the debate should focus before dropping down into detail. I don’t know if that is where the debate is – I think it is at, for example, whether or not a particular dam should be built instead of whether any dam should be built i.e. live within the planet’s means.
you’re making some very astute points here vto.
his point that any water they take is with consent doesn’t mean they are not wrecking the environment to do so. Also farmers are one of the main lobbyists to change the RMA. Wont change the affordability of houses in Auckland giving more river draining irrigation to farmers.
I have not got the time unfortunately to get enough information to make a real informed comment on the smaller detail of what’s right or wrong or how far we should go on our current model of farming.
On the big picture stuff all the problems on this rock of ours start and finish with mankind and I doubt we are capable as a species of making the needed changes . ( unless we build a all powerful religion around John Lennon s”IMAGINE” )
What year was the Asian invasion?
Same time as the euro invasion around mid-1800’s
ed:..just found this..one of the funniest vid-clips i have seen for some time..
(ed:..this will take you to the shangri-las doing leader of the pack..(vocals have been cleaned up..and it sounds great..)
..all the humour is in the visuals..
..you can wonder @ the lop-sided bun of the lead-singer..
..but the real laugh-out-loud stuff happens when the ‘leader of the pack’ wheels onto the stage..
..and just when you think it can’t get any funnier..
..said leader of the pack does things with his ‘hog’..
..heh..!
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/ed-one-of-the-funniest-vid-clips-i-have-seen-for-some-time/
Europe’s top rights body has said mass surveillance practices are a fundamental threat to human rights and violate the right to privacy enshrined in European law.
The parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe says in a report that it is “deeply concerned” by the “far-reaching, technologically advanced systems” used by the US and UK to collect, store and analyse the data of private citizens. It describes the scale of spying by the US National Security Agency, revealed by Edward Snowden, as “stunning”.
The report also suggests that British laws that give the monitoring agency GCHQ wide-ranging powers are incompatible with the European convention on human rights. It argues that British surveillance may be at odds with article 8, the right to privacy, as well as article 10, which guarantees freedom of expression, and article 6, the right to a fair trial.
“These rights are cornerstones of democracy. Their infringement without adequate judicial control jeopardises the rule of law,” it says.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/26/mass-surveillance-threat-human-rights-council-europe
No explanation from anyone or anywhere will satisfy me as to why the NZ flag was flown at half mast on Auckland Harbour Bridge ( and likely elsewhere too) in ‘honour’ of the late Saudi King, ruler of all things vile and misogynist.
H.M. Betty Windsor, mother of four, is reported as having given him her personal opinion some years back … this is worth a moment …
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-best-story-about-the-queen-and-king-abdullah-you-will-read-today–eJYX859rsl
Go, girl !!!
Walking in Windsor Park many, many years ago on my OE, when my partner and I saw a car barrelling along one of the walkways/roads towards us.
Stepped out of the way, and got a glimpse of HM at the driver’s wheel. Vivid impression of someone enjoying themselves. Don’t know if the fact that the plebs had to move out of the way had something to do with that or not.
Flags at half mast, we do for any Head of State, but little has been said about the fact we are sending the GG half way across the Globe to attend the funeral. Especially when you consider the PM wouldn’t even pop next door when Hugo Chavez passed away.
did we do it when Chavez died? Key didn’t even take a short diversion to attend the funeral?
We flew flags at half mast on the day of the funeral as is standard protocol when a Head of State passes.
http://www.mch.govt.nz/nz-identity-heritage/flags/half-masting-new-zealand-flag
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/130037/pm-defends-decision-not-to-attend-chavez-funeral
of course for the nz labour party..what to look at with a degree of nervousness coming out of the greek election..
..is/has been the fate of the ‘socialist’ party..
..’cos..y’see..like labour here..the ‘socialist’ party in greece was socialist in name only..
..and actually..were pretty much in ideological-lockstep with the nz labour party..
..as being promoters/defenders of the neo-lib paradigm..for the previous decades..
..now..steel yrslves..!
..this greek version of our labour party..still clinging to those neo-lib policies/that history.. only got a single-figure result this election..
..and this from a party that dominated greek politics during the 80’s/90’s..and like here..alternated power with their version of our national party..
..(might be time for little to do a speech-rewrite..eh..?
..a milquetoast-speech/appearance in front of his business-audience..
..cd do him much more harm than good..)
The man who knew too much for Griffin and Bell
Gordon Campbell on Jim Mora’s Panel
“Someone like Scoop’s Gordon Campbell would be ideal. He wouldn’t let Hooton get away with anything.”—Anne
“Gordon Campbell would be great! (although I don’t think I’ve heard him on radio before).”—weka
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-26012015/#comment-957334
Actually, Gordon Campbell WAS a guest on The Panel a few years ago, on at least two occasions. In the dire history of this dog of a show, Campbell supplies not one but TWO highlights: on one occasion confounding the bullying ex-copper Graham Bell and on another confounding the superficially jolly back-slapper Richard Griffin. On each occasion Campbell simply pointed out that they did not have a clue what they were talking about. A humiliated Bell retreated into a glowering, resentful silence, while Griffin made a groveling apology and retraction on the spot.
Yes, I remember that. We never heard Campbell again but whether it was because he wasn’t invited back or whether he chose not to return because he considered it a waste of time I don’t know. I suspect it was the latter.
Am i right in thinking a saw not 1 but 2 shots of the PM in the BMW golf open adds?
Is that ‘within the rules”?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11392100
Headline:
Super-rich to cough up $77m extra tax after IRD probe
Content:
Super-rich busted for at least $77m tax fraud.
If I recall correctly thats twice the amount of beneficiary fraud.
Super-rich busted for at least $77m tax fraud.
Bastards!
These rich are the real beneficiaries, parasites and scum of the country. Put the buggers in jail for a few years to spend in the company of low level crims and without any special privileges.
A lesson they and the other rich crooks will never forget.
That article is actually startling, boom. The super-rich are defined as having over $50 million and there are 200 individuals in that group which is being investigated by the IRD special team. 93 declared taxable income below $70,000.
$77 million is being sought in additional assessments. If you measure that figure against the 200 being investigated, that’s $350,000 each in taxation which was wrongly declared. If it’s put against the 93, then it’s $827,000 avoided…………..
According to mickysavage in February 2014 in this Standard post average beneficiary fraud was $22 million in 2010.
http://thestandard.org.nz/damien-grant-thinks-tax-fraudsters-are-more-worthy-than-beneficiary-fraudsters/
In mickysavage’s post, the average fraud for tax evasion was $800,000.
I guess the question is, why aren’t the fraudsters who under-claimed by $77 million at an average of the amount of convicted fraudsters facing the courts?
The onus should be on a person making false declarations to prove he or she is not guilty. After all, they have signed a declaration that their tax claim is true. That process would name them, perhaps shame them, and act as a deterrent with the prospect of jail time.
Let’s assume that the average wealth of these individuals is $100M (where the minimum wealth is $50M). Therefore the 200 individuals involved have a net wealth of $20B = $20,000M dollars.
$77M in extra tax assessed = 0.39% of their net wealth.
I think the super-rich will live through this experience.
At this level of assets and income, they are at the top of the one percenters- the owners of 50% of the world’s wealth. You are a one percenter with assets above about $800,000.
Yep.
What the 1%ers with $800K net wealth don’t realise is the massive wealth inequality within the 1%. It is in fact in the personal interests of most of the 1% to reduce wealth inequality!
It might be only 0.39% but I bet the buggers fight to keep it.
Just out of “principle” they will.
“The onus should be on a person making false declarations to prove he or she is not guilty.”
I strongly disagree. The bedrock of our justice system, even hardly observed in practice, should not be abandoned for money. The onus is still on the prosecution, although tax magistrates with investigatory powers would be a good idea.
Your proposal would immediately be used against Dotcom, for a start, and half the population would believe he was guilty without any proof.
Your’e absolutely right, Murray Rawshark. And I’m glad you strongly disagree. I wrote more out of sheer frustration as to how people can have so much and want to rort even more.
I like your idea of tax magistrates.
Do these tax dodgers get penalty tax to help defray the cost of the IRD’s work? Sort of ‘abuser pays’?
And allow the crown to take their wealth under the Criminal Proceeds law (or whatever it’s called).
I wish they’d this part differently:
“The country’s most well-off have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in extra tax…”
The “extra tax” part makes it sound like they’ve paid more tax they they should have, to me at any rate.
Yers. Bassguy. It’s $77 million in tax that had been avoided/undeclared/reassessed over and above what they had assessed.
And that would be the way that it’s supposed to sound like. The MSM protect the rich – it seems to be their main job.
Four days before Kristallnacht,
the Herald was breezily promoting travel to Nazi Germany
HOW NAZI GERMANY RECEIVES BRITISH TOURISTS
By M. F. GRAHAM
New Zealand Herald, 5 November 1938, Page 1 of Supplement
IT would be hard to decide which thought us the more courageous—our old friends in England, when told we were planning to visit Germany, or our new German friends on learning that we had braved the perils of world travel all the way from New Zealand in order to enjoy a few weeks’ rest and relaxation, in their peaceful and prosperous country. ….
http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=NZH19381105.2.230.4&e=——-10–1—-0–
morrissy..
..cd u plse tell us why you so distorted what actually happened..
..in yr reporting of the hooton/williams piece on nat-rad yesterday..
..cd u plse tell us why you so distorted what actually happened..
..in yr reporting of the hooton/williams piece on nat-rad yesterday..
Golly, phillip, you sure like to bang away at something, even when it’s been patiently clarified for you. If you think Hooton was not trying to undermine Andrew Little yesterday, and if you failed to comprehend that Mike Williams was in his usual groveling mode, then I suggest that you lay off the weed for a while, and clear your head.
as i asked u yesterday..
..cd u plse specify how hooton was ‘undermining’ little..
..and cd you also detail what williams shd not have ‘agreed with’…
..(in that opening-segment you ostensibly ‘reported’ on..)
..everything hooton said was matter-of-fact/the-bleeding-obvious..
..there was nothing for williams to disagree with..
(and a pot-sneer..?..really..?..that’s all ya got..?…)
..and cd u show me where u said/did this..
“..even when it’s been patiently clarified for you..”
No that’s not “all I’ve got”, phillip, but your obtuseness is something to behold. You usually write quite interesting and thoughtful messages, but on this occasion you’ve somehow got the idea that Hooton was not playing games yesterday, and that Williams was anything other than the groveller he usually is.
You’re either lying like a National Party operative, or you’re hallucinating. I can’t think of a better explanation than too much dope.
i wd ask anyone to go and listen to that segment..
..this doesn’t need to be argued between us..
..listeners can make their own call..
..what u did is clear..
..i am asking ‘why?’..
(..then again..maybe you’ve sprung me guv..!..maybe i am a national party operative..in deep cover..
..and u say i am effected by ‘dope’..?..
..does yrs just come naturally..?..)
i wd ask anyone to go and listen to that segment..
Indeed. And could anyone who thinks Hooton was not up to his usual smarmy insinuations and that Williams was not kowtowing in his usual humiliating fashion, please say so.
“..“..even when it’s been patiently clarified for you..”
..so was that another lie too..?
..and why the need to make shit up about them..?
..aren’t they bad enough in their own right..?
..surely just accurately reporting what they say/do is enough in itself..
Morrisey, enough with the ad hominems. Pu actually asked a pretty straight forward question: how did Hooton undermine Little?
Here’s the link in case anyone wants the primary source.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20164872/political-commentators-matthew-hooton-and-mike-williams
Morrisey, enough with the ad hominems.
You’re a fine one to talk, my friend!
Pu actually asked a pretty straight forward question: how did Hooton undermine Little?
He TRIED to undermine him, to plant a seed of doubt in listeners’ minds. Anybody with a grain of sense, who isn’t on drugs, could understand what he was up to. He put the most negative possible spin on the latest polls. He even said that Little’s leadership would be endangered.
“You’re a fine one to talk, my friend!”
Where is the ad hominem in my comment to you? Or recent comments to you?
Thanks for clarifying. I’ve gone and had a listen myself now, and largely agree*. See below.
*except for the bits about pu’s drug use. I’m guessing his disagreement is politics (he thinks Labour is deficient etc).
1. in latest poll, Labour have half what National do. Because we’re in FPP still, thanks Matthew.
2. far lower than Goff or Shearer or any of Little’s predecessor’s were polling. Because all of Labour’s problems are Little’s fault now, and he alone has to turn things around from one poll to the next.
3. if Little can’t end the year higher than 26% then we’re looking at another leadership change by the end of 2015
4. indiviual polls are what count, not trends.
Looks like fairly standard manipulative spin from Hooton to me. He wants to undermine the Labour party and the left by making out that Little is deficient, and Labour are still in disarray and will need a new leader! 🙄
That’s the first two minutes. Can’t be bothered with the rest, so am just going to skip to Williams.
Ryan asked Williams not if he agrees with Hooton in general, but if he agrees that Little now needs to pick up the ball with any and every opportunity.
Williams, “Yeah, I would absolutely agree with almost everything Matthew said.” Followed by some comment about the summer being almost politics free moodwise amongst the public.
He then goes on to say some things that actually contradict Hooton, so the question for me remains why does Williams do that agreeing with shit at the start of his commentary?
Thanks weka, for taking the time to seriously read what I wrote and check it against phillip’s allegations. You’re correct: his loathing for the Labour leadership has blinded him to the extent that he is prepared to endorse the manipulative words of Matthew Hooton, which were as sincere yesterday as they were in his ludicrous tribute to Nelson Mandela in December 2013.
you lying prick morrissey..
..hooton said labour are at 26% in the polls..fact..
..hooton said little has 12 months to prove himself..fact..
..hooton said littles’ speech on wed ins important..fact..
..that is all he said..that is all williams agreed with..
..and a factcheck 4 you..i supported little for the labour party leadership..
..what a fucken lying-troll/piece-of-work u have turned out to be..
Gosh, phillip, a simple expression of disagreement would have put your case across clearly. Why escalate it to such unpleasantness?
I note also that you hijacked a serious thread about something else entirely, that I had initiated. If you do that again, I will make a formal complaint to the Headmaster.
i’m sorry..?
..u make shit up about me..and do serial drug-slurs..
..and i am the ‘unpleasant’ one..
..eh..?
“You’re correct: his loathing for the Labour leadership has blinded him to the extent that he is prepared to endorse the manipulative words of Matthew Hooton,”
‘cept I didn’t say that about phil 🙂
‘cept I didn’t say that about phil
Well, yes you did, actually. You wrote: “I’m guessing his disagreement is politics (he thinks Labour is deficient etc).”
I wrote: “his loathing for the Labour leadership has blinded him to the extent that he is prepared to endorse the manipulative words of Matthew Hooton”
In other words, as you wrote, he’s driven by his (quite understandable) attitude about the Labour Party.
no.
I guessed, you asserted fact.
I said I thought it was about phil’s politics, you said it IS about his hatred as motivation and what that hatred does to his perception.
There is a difference here and it’s to do with attributing things to other people that haven’t been checked out. It takes people into conversational cul de sacs. I’m not picking on you, we all do it. I just saw this thing happening and though ok, here we go again. And what a waste when we could actually be talking about the politics.
You and phil appeared to be talking about different things. Phil was talking about the content of Hooton’s statements at face value, you were talking about what Hooton was doing with those statements and Hooton’s motivation. IMO both are valid topics, and arguing about which is rightfully valid is redundant.
Well said, weka! I pretty much agree with everything you’ve said.
Williams, “Yeah, I would absolutely agree with almost everything Matthew said.”
And that’s what listeners will remember. Williams is an idiot. How about something like “Obviously I don’t see things the same way that the NAct asslicker Hooton does, even though a few facts have crept into his analysis this time.”
Exactly, Murray.
Aside from that particular interview and more generally with other appearances, what concerns me is that Williams does not take the lead on any narrative or put up other compelling alternative perspectives.
i agree, kiwiri, (@3.40pm)
and your comment would sum up the approach the party he was president of.
Indicative of the moral thought processes of those that already have, a quote from
Joanna Pidgeon – Auckland District Law Society Vice President in today’s Herald article: The Ups and Downs of apartment living.
“You can limit your liability Joanna Pidgeon, Auckland District Law Society vice-president, has an exceptionally big Auckland floor which she plans to convert into an apartment and is enthusiastic about inner-city living.
She owns a 240sq m residential floor in a Vincent St building which comes with a 10sq m storeroom and three car parks.
But she advised people to buy in the name of a company, not an individual, saying this could act as protection if something went wrong.
“That way, there’s limited liability. If you can’t pay your body corporate fees, you can liquidate a company. If it’s bought in the name of an individual, that person can be bankrupted for non-payment.””
No mention of the financial consequences of those who her LLC owes money to, and whether it is justifiable that she uses a company to own her property – which more than likely can claim maintenance and body corporate fees as expenses.
Judith Collins once held that position.
… enough said.
someone has stolen my car…
“someone has stolen my car…”
What a bomb!
What happened?
stolen from outside my house..
anyone got a car they don’t want/need..?
There are some scumbags about, sorry to hear Phil hope they just took it for a joyride locally and it’s been parked up undamaged. I have a friend ( he is away for a week) who buys good cheaps cars, will see if there is a runner going for bugger all.
chrs..
That is a real bugger when it happens.
Was it locked? Have you informed the police? Insured?
What will you do now?
yep..locked..
..not yet..will do..
..no..not insured..
..i dunno why anyone wd want to ‘joyride’ in it..
..it was a 91 subaru legacy wagon..top of the range that yr..
..and in really mint condition..(it was no ‘bomb’..)
..a black/chrome beast…with good/flash wheels/rubber..
..dead easy to steal..don’t think i’ll be seeing it again..
..and i had just got new warrant etc..grrr!!!!
..it does put a bit of a bump in yer day..i hafta say..
Take heart …someone is going to be VERY happy cruising in your joy machine.
Burglars struck our abode before Xmas….cleaned out anything of value plugged into the 240V.
Insurance company have been complete and utter rhymes with bankers.
Contents policy cancelled. Still no payout.
BIG discussion about insurance company dodgey doings needed at some stage.
“subaru legacy wagon”
legacy, forrester and imprezza are the fav theft car of all time
thats all the answer you need really – the year is somewhat irrelevant after that
also – used to drive a legacy station wagon, swapped to a nissan wingroad – service charges dropped by half simply from having more room in the engine bay and things like spark plugs on top instead of jammed down the side
I feel for you. A few years ago I had a new muffler put on my car, which they said would last the rest of the car’s life. It did, of course, but it only had to last three whole days. Cost me about $400 as well.
Sadly, the Subaru Legacy holds a position in the top ten most stolen cars in the country.
I think you’re right, I think it’s probably been taken because of its good condition.
There’s no harm in me hoping you get it back, though.
chrs..
and what really hurts..
..it had a box of my favourite mix-tapes..
dont worry – those all turn into queen tapes after a while in the car anyway
I’ve owned three copies of that book. Everyone who’s read even a few pages of it seems to just nick it, and who can blame them?
Actually, I’m not even sure I still have my latest copy…
its a kind of “go anywhere” joke
I know it is pretty useless my saying it, but I would definitely have given you a car if I had a spare one.
Hopefully, someone will be able to help you soon.
If you set up an account, (say, the ‘give a little’ or something else), I will be happy to contribute a small donation.
chrs clem..
Time to stop eating sardines. When near top of the food chain species are being affected, there is something seriously wrong.
The whole article is worth a read for its lay person coverage of how sea ecosystems work and why they are important.
http://www.salon.com/2015/01/25/where_did_all_the_sardines_go_partner/
Today’s scientists don’t think the answer is so simple, as sardine populations are known for following a boom-and-bust cycle.
There are significant regime changes in species quanta over long periods of time,the so called anchovies sardine regimes.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5604/217
Ae, the natural boom/bust cycle needs to be undestood in the context of CC and over-fishing.
Which is another reason why I don’t get why people think population isn’t an issue. The ocean makes this really clear, because the ecosystems are much more fluid than on land. We are overfishing. We are altering the biosphere to an extent that affects the ocean’s ability to maintain itself. Even if we argue that CC is about fair distribution of use of resources, there is no getting around the finite planet.
Are we at peak fisheries yet? If we want to reverse resource depletion what should we be eating? Where will it be grown and what will that do to those ecosystems?
The age of peak oil has ended.
Welcome to the age of AGW
For a time the peak oil spectre was promoted by some pundits as a greater threat to humanity than climate change.
This false supposition has been put to rest.
Harnessing the inexhaustible resource of human ingenuity, has delivered us a new age of cheap superabundance, of unconventional fossil fuels. The new technologies of Tar Sands, Fracking, Deep Sea Oil and Gas, have pushed the prospect of peak oil back over the horizon of the foreseeable future.
If only the same inexhaustible human creativity and ingenuity could be applied to renewables.
http://www.energypost.eu/historic-moment-saudi-arabia-sees-end-oil-age-coming-opens-valves-carbon-bubble/
You’re utterly wrong on this. There is no more cheap fossil fuels to be found.
None of what you mention can deliver a barrel of oil to the market for less than US$50. Is that now considered “cheap”?
The global economic stagnation that Main St has been in for years – that’s a direct result of Peak Oil (that is, peak CONVENTIONAL oil from land based oil wells) in 2005 playing out through the cost structures of the entire world.
“You’re utterly wrong on this. There is no more cheap fossil fuels to be found.”
You’re both wrong 😛
Or right.
Peak Oil was for a long time considered the pressing problem because many thought that it would prevent CC. But it didn’t arrive on time and many (myself included) have now shifted to seeing CC as the pressing issue because we can’t rely on PO to undermine the carbon economy in time. It will happen, but it will be too late.
So yes, there is no more cheap oil but we are in a transition period where the economy will pull at all the oil it can get until it falls over, and in that sense, PO is a sub issue.
In other words ‘cheap’ is relative.
Peak Oil was for a long time considered the pressing problem because many thought that it would prevent CC
It is not a get out of jail card for policy makers.A lot of the underlying generic memes were never correct in the first place.
The significant (conservative) error in the statistical assumptions have been questioned and the problem is greater then many assume.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2008.00318.x/abstract
http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2008/SignificanceArticle.asp
The errors aside,the underlying policy initiatives (which have been in place since the 70’s,have had an effect on the demand side of the equation, the US transport and home heating efficiencies( gas vs oil) have reduced US demand by around 2 million barrels per day.
I think cv is correct.
Peak oil has occurred but it has a long tail because harder more expensive options are being exhausted and the alternative for the proponents of oil is not palatable, not even conceivable. I’m not sure if PO was thought to prevent CC – CC is actually runaway-CC now and that is definitely related to the excessive orgy of oil we have lived and burned through.
The theory was that PO would mitigate the worst effects of CC, because we would be forced off FF. It wasn’t going to prevent CC (it’s always been too late for that), but there was the idea that it would stop it from getting so bad. But it didn’t happen in the timeframe expected.
“If only the same inexhaustible human creativity and ingenuity could be applied to renewables.”
Only if we powerdown. If we transition to renewables to ensure BAU, we will continue on our path of overpopulation, resource overshoot, environmental destruction, peak soil, poverty, third world starvation, war, violence etc.
I liked your post btw, it seemed more accessible and to the point than some of the others. Not saying they all have to be like this, just that I personally found it better.
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21640395-government-offers-no-solutions-mounting-economic-crisis-empty-shelves-and-rhetoric?zid=305&ah=417bd5664dc76da5d98af4f7a640fd8a
Interesting to see that the government owned shops were set up by the Socialist Chavista regime with the aim to never again be subject to shortages of goods yet they themselves are suiffering a huge shortage of goods.
Of course it is all the fault of the ‘evil’ opposition forces and not the result of dunderheaded policies of the government itself – “According to one official, the children of the rich are “infiltrating people into the queues” to cause trouble.”
Venezuela is under active economic attack by the western financial markets and billion dollar hedge funds. What do you expect.
Not to forget all those rich kids standing in line to make the country look foolish.
Gosman, you are a fool. You know nothing about Venezuela.
And, no, haunting right wing blogs and watching Fox News is not a credible way of learning anything.
I told you some time ago to embark on a course of deep, sustained and serious reading. You clearly have not done so. Why are you still here?
Do you think The Economist is making stuff up about Venezuela?
Do you deny there are massive shortages and people waiting in lines for hours?
If this is in fact happening how do you explain it if not as the result of policies of the government of Venezuela?
Do you think The Economist is making stuff up about Venezuela?
I know The Economist is making stuff up about Venezuela, just as the Grauniad and the Washington Post do. Since you do not know anything, you believe their channeling of State Department black propaganda.
Do you deny there are massive shortages and people waiting in lines for hours?
There is certainly orchestrated hoarding of essential items in order to create a sense of crisis. The United States is using the same game plan it did in Chile in order to destabilize and eventually destroy that democratically elected government. Unfortunately for the extreme right in Venezuela, and for its U.S. funder, the people of Venezuela are well aware of what is happening. They overturned the U.S.-sponsored coup in 2002, so a bit of economic wrecking is not going to achieve very much. No one, other than fools like you, believes that Venezuela will capitulate.
Your remaining question, as well as being grammatically a nonsense, provides further evidence that you do not know what you are talking about. I ask again: why are you here? Why are you not seriously reading?
Collins v Goff in next Auckland Mayoral race.
A lose/lose for Auckland
But a win for the rest of the nation 😛
Not really. What happens in Auckland eventually filters through to the rest of the nation.
You know that big ass wall Saudi Arabia is building between it and Iraq? I suggest the same. It will create a lot of needed employment.
So. John Key should have not been elected according to the case bought to the High Court by Arthur Taylor. Interesting idea but what if he succeeded?
“Prisoner Arthur Taylor is representing himself in the High Court at Auckland today, arguing Prime Minister John Key shouldn’t have been elected in Helensville, as Auckland Prison inmates were denied their right to vote.
Taylor says a 2010 amendment to the law which stopped them voting is dangerous, as parliamentarians shouldn’t decide who can and can’t elect them.
He said there was no telling who the amendment could be extended to, alleging refugees, beneficiaries, or those who earn less than $28,000 could all be on the list.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11392508
It is not clear to me how the honourable Mr. Taylor has managed to link prisoners with beneficiaries and low income earners….with the threat that the latter two groups could find their right to vote….gone.
I’m not the sharpest hook in the tackle box…so help me here.
I am also not inclined towards sympathy towards our incarcerated cousins…unless the incarceration is unjust…and it will be a happy day for disabled New Zealanders when the government, and by default the community, considers people with disability as worthy of government expenditure as prisoners.
And as for Mr Taylor objecting to not being able to make his defence from the dock…tough …
When my partner testified in court…no facility to enter the witness stand like everyone else…which does bring one on a higher level than the lawyers, and only slightly lower than the judge.
They shagged around trying to rig up room at a table, a microphone, etc.
Having to crane his broken neck to answer the Judge caused him actual physical discomfort.
He was on the verge of passing out by the time they had finished with him.
I’d say most incarcerations are unjust and a waste of time and money. We can expect more of them as more private prisons are built. What Arthur Taylor is saying is that if a government can decide one group of citizens lose their voting rights, they can easily extend that to other groups. I think he has a valid point and I think many NAct supporters would happily see beneficiaries lose the right. Except for pensionsers, of course. I wish Arthur luck with his case.
“I’d say most incarcerations are unjust and a waste of time and money. ”
At the risk of inciting some sort of shit storm vis a vis “what to do with the bad guys”….well….Murray Rawshark…what do you do with the bad guys?
Send them all round to live at yours, with your family, while society develops a better way of combining relevant and effective punishment and rehabilitation with the interests of victims and the safety of the larger community?
Is that a “yes, bring them all round!” I hear?
Cause, in the meantime, for better or worse, this is the system we have….and it is far from perfect for anyone…especially for the innocent victims of offenders released back into the community when there time is up.
As for the “money”.
Hell yes, I agree the minimum of $90, 000 per annum per prisoner is a waste of money.
Oh, that the government would agree to a budget of $90,000 per year to keep a disabled person safe, housed, cared for properly!
Arthur Taylor is not, IMHO, a fearless battler for the rights of the less advantaged.
He is, IMHO, a narcissistic grandstander.
Thank you for presenting the same arguments against prison reform that are made by the SS Trust. I think you have the wrong blog.
As you say, you’re not the sharpest hook in the tackle box.
Why is it, oh annon one, that whenever anyone presents an alternate view here they get attacked.
Perhaps the best form of defence?
Pray tell, where are the hints that the government in it’s infinite evil is plotting a removal of voting rights from beneficiaries and those on low incomes?
However…if you can cast your mind back to 17th May 2013…the right to take a specific issue to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the Courts was removed from people with disabilities and their family carers.
This produced an audible (if short lived) gasp of outrage from the left…and if you wander back through TS archive you will find my post….
No one replied.
Why?
Because god forbid that a person with a genuine lived experience of an issue is given any credence
In the real world, like it or not MR, there are some people who are simply too dangerous to be allowed to free range.
Others, capable of ‘rehabilitation’ ; lock them up in isolation, away from other prisoners, but with access to education and health care, addiction counselling and grief and anger management therapy. Much more important than all that….give them space to actually think…
What are YOUR suggestions MR?
“Pray tell, where are the hints that the government in it’s infinite evil is plotting a removal of voting rights from beneficiaries and those on low incomes?”
Hyperbolic strawman. No-one has suggested that the govt is plotting this. The point is that if you remove voting rights from one sector, it makes others vulnerable. I can see the day down the line when beneficiaries are treated as a separate class under law. They’re already doing it via policy.
If you read the headline, Taylor is talking about ‘precedent’.
Also, see Milt’s point below about Kiwiblog commenters believing that only net tax payers should vote. There are people in NZ that want this, and it’s safe to assume some of them are in National or ACT.
Yeah, that bit’s really scary but the really scary point is that most of the people wanting don’t realise that they will very rapidly not be net tax payers if it comes in. Only the 1% will be allowed to vote.
However…if you can cast your mind back to 17th May 2013…the right to take a specific issue to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and the Courts was removed from people with disabilities and their family carers.
This produced an audible (if short lived) gasp of outrage from the left…and if you wander back through TS archive you will find my post….
No one replied.
Why?
Do you mean comment rather than post?
Lots of people make comments on ts without getting a reply.
The standard isn’t that great on disability issues.
I don’t see the connection with the prisoner voting article though.
“The standard isn’t that great on disability issues.”
No shit, Sherlock. lol. (or whatever is the acceptable emoticon to denote “not being nasty, just saying, ok?”)
“I don’t see the connection with the prisoner voting article though.”
Going to be difficult this, so bear with me, while I coax my average brain into forming an (acceptable) explanation.
Its like this.
Both my partner and myself (read my comment from 2013) have still not recovered from that one act. Or Act.
When we hear of other, in our humble opinion, less worthy groups and individuals, clamouring and demanding that their rights under NZBORA are acknowledged, we …..well….not very sharp emoters that we are…cry.
Can’t seem to help it. And no…we make a particular point of not feeding each others grief.
Why is it that those who have committed crimes are considered more worthy than non ACC disabled Kiwis?
If we were prisoners and not happy with the way we are treated, we could trot off to the HRC or the Courts…and at least have our day.
Neither Labour nor the Greens, despite the huff and puff in the House that day made the issue of that particular legislation an issue….until the 11th hour.
In my ignorance I foolishly thought that perhaps wandering around in this bastion of left wingerism would give me a little insight as to why this ‘outrage’ that nearly “broke the constitution” (A Geddis) was a short lived issue.
So…Mr Taylor gets up on his high one, dragging in the ‘innocent’ disadvantaged to support his defense of the rights of prisoners…but no mention of the disabled????
Why would that be?
Because they ALREADY came for the disabled….and who cried “breach of rights”….for long enough?
Clickety clack, clickety clack…as the train cars rolled out of the siding…..
“The Standard” doesn’t really exist. It is kind of a gestalt of its fervently disagreeing parts. A place rather than an entity. Only shallow fools* who try to avoid responsibility by treating a machine as a being.
If you want to change something about what it is talking about, then the best way find someone who can write posts (an artform in its own right), preferably shortish, about a topic and send them in as a guest post.
I’m trying to guest posts off my plate at present. But if you don’t catch my frenzied attention, then try again…
//====
* Bomber comes to mind here along with the crowds of other avowed timewasters who in the last 7 years have determined to dirty the site, and who we have left in our wake. If I see someone describing TS as an entity, I usually either ban them to help them for their search for their perfect solution (a number of other blogs arose out of that) or recruit them to find out why things don’t happen as they naively think that they should (ditto).
What’s the story with guest posting at the moment? I’ve seen a couple of people say they’ve submitted things and just never heard back from anyone. Is this a holiday thing, or is there a backlog or what?
The way you are connecting this to the article on prisoner voting appears to be based on your prejudice against people in prison. I think your arguments about disability and the legislation are good, but I think you are undermining them by this comparison. For one, most people here will disagree with you that people in prison are lesser human beings when it comes to human rights, and so the conversation will get bogged down in that. You will also have a hard time arguing for human rights for one group by saying that some people are less worthy or more worthy than others.
“Why is it that those who have committed crimes are considered more worthy than non ACC disabled Kiwis?”
They’re not. People convicted of a crime can’t vote. Your partner, and myself (who also has a non-ACC covered disability and who the state routinely treats as second class), can vote. So in that instance your partner and myself have more rights and by your argument are more worthy.
To put it another way, the govt is saying that people with disabilities and people in prison are both not as worthy as the rest of NZ. Māori too, if you look at the Foreshore and Seabed Act. There’s probably lots of examples. That’s the real problem here, that the governments make these decisions (and that is down to our form of democracy IMO).
I agree that the 2013 law change should have been more vigourously debated and challenged on the left (across the spectrum in fact). I will read your comment if you link to it, thanks.
Martin Niemoller:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me”
We are meant to have universal suffrage – denying prisoners is the thin edge of the wedge – who will be next?
My suggestions start with taking the issue seriously rather than the kneejerk bullshit of “have them all at your place.” That really takes privatisation of penal policy to an obscene extreme and I doubt you’re worth debating with. I’ve had a few at my place over the years and had no problems with any of them. It’s not a solution though. It’s just Garth McVicar type bullshit.
I suspect Arthur Taylor would have objected to the removal of the right to take cases to the Human Rights Review Tribunal as well. I did, but you’ll just have to take my word for that. I’m totally sick of the bullshit argument that prisoners get a sweet life because the government is so generous with them, at the expense of whatever group. If you want to blame prisoners for how you and your partner got treated in court, that’s your problem.
“That really takes privatisation of penal policy to an obscene extreme and I doubt you’re worth debating with. ”
Back again with the personal insults again MR?
Is that the best you’ve got??
Okay.
A woman in her early sixties living in a state funded but privately owned facility goes on a hunger strike.
She had had over a decade since her disabling stoke, and had proved her strong will to live on more than one occasion.
However, a refusal by ‘the system’ to fund two pieces of equipment that would have made her life more tolerable drove her to go on a hunger strike.
Cue the ‘right to die with dignity’ crowd,
Now, if we have a convicted criminal who goes on a hunger strike, or attempts (or succeeds) to suicide in prison, do the ‘right to die with dignity’ crew step up and defend his rights?
Well? Do they?
No they damn well don’t.
Because a disabled person losing the will to live is , well, hey life’s a shit sandwich and its always lunchtime for those guys….
But a prisoner? MUST be because the ‘system’ is failing them.
And I don’t need you Mr Rawshark to tell me I’m not worthy…
Once a citizen is compelled by force to stay at Her Majesty’s leisure, the Crown implicitly accepts extensive, specific and commensurate responsibilities that it must fulfil.
It’s not a hard concept to understand if you think about it in any depth instead of living on fake outrage.
Actually it’s explicit, but I don’t think our Sensible Sentencing Trust advocate here would know the difference. I suspect the concept you mention is way out of her reach. Prisoners must lose their rights because someone’s cat ate a baby tui. Yeah, ridiculous. Prisoners must lose their rights because disabled people have a hard time. Just as bloody ridiculous, but neocon logic at its best. Iraq must be invaded because some Saudis directed from Afghanistan committed some atrocious attacks. Hmmm…maybe I’m the one that doesn’t see things clearly.
You had no hesitation in attacking Arthur Taylor personally. Is it different because he’s not here to defend himself?
I am inclined to agree with you.
Our constitution and bill of rights states two important points:
[1] Under the title, ‘2. Democratic and Civil Rights’ it says,
‘As a New Zealand citizen over 18 you have the right to vote and to be a Member of Parliament’
AND
[2] The main part of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act states:
‘The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act places limits on the actions of those in government (including government departments, the judiciary, state-owned enterprises and local authorities) that interfere with the rights of individuals. The Bill of Rights Act also protects the rights of non-natural persons, for example, companies and incorporated societies.
Laws to be consistent with the Bill of Rights
All new legislation is examined to see if it is consistent with the rights and freedoms affirmed by the Bill of Rights Act. If there are any inconsistencies, then the government is required to provide a justification for the limits placed on these rights. The Attorney-General must report any inconsistencies with the Bill of Rights Act to Parliament when the legislation is introduced.
Courts able to enforce the Bill of Rights
If you believe that someone in government has interfered with your rights, you can apply to the courts to consider your claim that your rights have been breached.’
——————-
Seems clear cut.
I think the parliament, just because it had the majority, rammed through a discriminatory law preventing prisoners from voting. So, where does it end? If this is lawful, then what is to stop the government from ramming through a law preventing beneficiaries or any other disadvantaged group from taking part in voting?
————
It would be interesting to read the verdict at the conclusion of this case.
—————-
Here is the link to the NZ Bill of rights document:
http://www.hrc.co.nz/human-rights-environment/human-rights-legislation/new-zealand-bill-of-rights-act/
————
It is not clear to me how the honourable Mr. Taylor has managed to link prisoners with beneficiaries and low income earners….with the threat that the latter two groups could find their right to vote….gone.
The link could be described as “people the government doesn’t like.” Taylor is saying that if the government can disenfranchise one group of people it doesn’t like, on the basis that it thinks they don’t deserve the vote, there’s nothing to prevent it disenfranchising other groups it finds undeserving.
There’s plenty of historical precedent (eg, property-based franchises), and there are certainly commenters on Kiwiblog who’ve made the claim that only nett taxpayers (ie, people who pay more in tax than they receive in government transfers) should be allowed to vote. It seems to me he has a point.
I’m wondering if it’s worse than that. Not just the people that NACT don’t like or believe don’t deserve to vote, but those that would more likely vote for other parties.
Is the Auckland Prison in Key’s electorate? I thought that was the implication but it wasn’t clear.
Paremoremo is in Key’s electorate.
ta.
I hope we get some more reporting on this, it certainly looks interesting. Like PM, I think the guy has a point.
I don’t think he’ll win this case, but I agree he has a point. When someone is convicted of certain crimes, the punishment is often loss of liberty. It is not loss of citizenship. Martyn Findlay fixed this years ago and it’s a real retrograde step to see it back.
Seems like another cherished aim of left wing people the world over has taken a set back. The wealth tax on the super rich in France has basically been scrapped.
http://www.english.rfi.fr/general/20150103-dead-and-buried-france-quietly-scraps-controversial-wealth-tax
Today I got Gosman’s replies. I had a long shower.
I’m seem to be getting everyone’s replies but my own.
Yeeauch!
Did you get a belly laugh out of the Gaza massacre?
John Oliver did.
The late great Joan Rivers was, and Sacha Baron Cohen and Jerry Seinfeld are, notorious for finding amusement in the plight of the people of imprisoned Gaza and the Occupied Territories. But what some people regard as “serious” comedians are almost as bad. In this clip, John Oliver gets lots of laughs out of the bombing of Gaza. He treats it as if both sides are equally to blame. Kind of like the Germans and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising: both sides are equally to blame, equally crazy, so let’s laugh at the absurdity….
John Oliver – World of Peacecraft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTO-xSXElcU
f.f.s..!..morrissy..!
..do u have aspirations to be a censor..?
..and what exactly is wrong with that piece from oliver..?
..what weird-reading r u giving it..?
..it’s all in yr head..eh..?
Lay off the marijuana, phillip. It’s affecting not only your temper, so embarrassingly evident in your behaviour on this forum recently, but also your judgement—as demonstrated by your naïve campaign on behalf of the Clintonesque Elizabeth Warren.
Piece on left victory in Greece with links to stories about important workers’ occupation:
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/big-left-victory-in-greek-elections-shows-growth-of-anti-austerity-movement/
Phil
More Guy McPhearson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84503534&v=mKkJb6IrV_U&x-yt-ts=1421914688
David Hicks to be declared innocent?
His critics should prepare to recant their smears
The rightwing campaign against David Hicks assumed his guilt, and made it seem a radical position to defend due process
by JEFF SPARROW, The Guardian, 26 January 2015
On 29 March 2007, then-Sydney Morning Herald columnist Miranda Devine ran a victory lap.
“By pleading guilty to terrorism this week,” she wrote, “David Hicks has plastered egg all over the faces of his supporters – the naive hysterics who believe he is a tortured innocent as well as those glory-seeking civil rights lawyers who have attached themselves to his case.”
Now, according to Hicks’s lawyer, the US government no longer disputes his innocence and is expected to overturn his conviction within the month. Boy, do those civil rights campaigners look silly or what!
It’s easy to ridicule pundits like Devine (and it’s fun, too) but there are serious matters at stake. David Hicks spent years incarcerated without charge. The issues involved in detaining a man without trial are hardly obscure.
“I am merely in favour of due process,” wrote Mark Day in the Telegraph as early as 2002. “Until or unless the allegations against Hicks and Habib are tested in court, we cannot be sure of their accuracy. We all live by the rule that, if we are accused of doing wrong, we should be tried in a court. The facts should be tested; we are entitled to lawyers to defend us and we cannot be held for lengthy periods without charge.”
Scarcely a radical position, one would have thought. Yet, when initial news broke about Hicks’ capture, the Howard government launched a remarkable campaign against him, one more-or-less predicated on his guilt.
On 15 January 2002, attorney-general Daryl Williams declared Hicks “one of the world’s most dangerous people”, deserving of the treatment he received. Defence minister Robert Hill admitted he had no idea what law, in what country, Hicks had been broken – but agreed, nonetheless, he should be in custody. Alexander Downer explained Hicks deserved “harsh US retribution”.
Asked if he thought detaining Hicks indefinitely without trial was fair, John Howard replied, “Given the circumstances of Afghanistan I think it is, yes.”
Over the long years Hicks remained in Cuba, the Howard government continued to smear him, all the while dancing around the fundamental question: are Australian citizens entitled to due process or not? …..
Read more….
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/27/david-hicks-declared-innocent-at-last-his-critics-should-recant-their-smears
Just confirming that I will be standing as a (fiercely) Independent 2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Kind regards
Penny Bright
http://www.pennybright4mayor.org.nz
Good on you Penny !
I see the horrid incumbent is looking to run again !
+1
Ohio policeman shoots himself in elevator
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/jan/06/us-police-officer-accidentally-shoots-himself-elevator-video
aka “whoopsy-daisy”. Getting casual with firearms leads to ouchies – relatively fortunate outcome, this time, as apparently he’s recovering at home.
Getting shot in the elevator is almost as painful as getting shot in the rotunda. Or even the portico. 🙂
And washing the blood stain from the toga – well my dear it’s hell. (For tender hearted people who must weep with every numbskull who hurts him or herself I say – he who lives with a gun, is lucky not to die from a gun.)
ffs, they’re putting video of someone shooting themselves on a news website?
News ain’t what it used to/should be. RNZ 7pm reported how a rich guy bought an expensive horse ffs
Meanwhile Key campaigned on no asset sales but today announced asset sales FFS
@ fender
It may have been that the racing industry and fine horse breeding industry is celebrating selling one of Patrick Hogan’s last at a good price, from one of his famous stallions. That is an industry employing people and we can well feel good about it being successful.
Maybe we can go into breeding industries and have them bear offspring three at a time. Look triplets of lovely little workshops for making doodads which are very much in demand etc. Thank goodness for the animals and crops otherwise nothing would be happening in NZ except people throwing symbols at one another.
I didn’t hear about the ass-it sales. I don’t listen to yek very often. Thanks for the heads up.
I know hedge fund managers buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,”
The Super Rich know that the edifice they’ve built is coming down. I guess they’ll be expecting us to manage their (our) farms next and serve them vintage champagne.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-26/middle-class-evaporates-global-oligarchs-plan-their-escape-form-impoverished-pleb-ma
Well at least we will know what to eat when the sheep and beef run out.
The rich tend to be a bit on the scrawny side in general ,we’d have to fatten them a bit, maybe we could force feed them like they do to geese.
‘Black Sheep’ is a good NZ film to watch to get into the mood
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gEDUDmZkyc
Just noting Key’s ad hominem in his response to Catton’s comments: “she’s a greenie therefore I don’t have to take any notice of what she says”
[lprent: Moved to OpenMike. While this looks pretty damn obvious paraphrasing of the actual comment to me, it does appear to have allowed some stupid diversion commentary going on. Meandering way off topic. ]
Weka,
As you well know, the PM did not use the words you have set out as a quote. I have read what he actually said. What else could he be expected to say?
One thing I would note about journalists in the MSM, is that they never misquoted me, or as far as I could see any other politician. It would be regarded as dishonest to do so, but that not deter you in the slightest.
[lprent: Moved to OpenMike. While the comment you are referring to looks to be a pretty damn obvious paraphrasing of the actual comment to me, it does appear to have allowed some stupid diversion commentary going on. Meandering way off topic. ]
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/65470014/john-key-distances-himself-from-mp-mike-sabin Can the man get any more arrogant? Sorry if my link didn’t work, I’m computer literate, honest!
A dishonest misquote.
[lprent: I think that we can count PG as being an expert on the subject of how to misquote. However it looked to me like a paraphrase, especially since weka knows how to use blockquotes.
Don’t derail posts like this again. You can go away and whine about me now… ]
great fact-checking there. /sarc
Lol, it’s not even a quote that I’m misquoting. Duh.
No it is not dishonest at all
That’s the quote and weka summarises it well – although I find it amusing that key is going down the “voted for us in large numbers” line – desperate for him to get that out so early on or perhaps it will be the mantra for the rest of the year.
Except that weka didn’t post as a summary, it was posted as a quote. Now I’m sure if Wayne had tried something like that you and weka would’ve be all over him for it.
Trying to defend it is as dishonest as doing it.
zzzzzzzzzzz
I think this is another example of your problems with comprehension PG*. I think that it’s pretty obvious from my phrasing that I’m not quoting Key, but paraphrasing. Key would never say what I paraphrased, because the point of what he is doing is to say something like I said, but to say it in a way that doesn’t make people think he is being rude or mean ie it’s reasonable to write off an award winning NZ author’s perspectives because she belongs to a crazy/evil political party.
*either that or you are being a trole.
It was pretty obvious to me, and I only just passed School C English.
Lol
Now Pete’s arguing that a fact-checking bias is as dishonest as lying.
The dissonance is strong in this one…
You are being dishonest pete because you know the obvious truth but still you can’t help, or resist, spreading dishonesty slurs against others for no reason other than bitterness.
Very funny. The obvious truth here is that weka got pinged for misquoting. Trying to turn that into attack looks a bit pathetic.
“pinged”?
A ping is a single pulse, rather than an incessant and shrill whine.
she was pretending to be key and getting behind hdr opinion of what he meant. geesh
authors opinions apparently are less valid than property speculators like jones or asset strippers like brierley.
I think that weka could have indeed been clearer that it was an interpretation rather than a direct quote. If I do that I try to somehow say that’s what I’m doing, or avoid using quotation marks.
But “dishonest misquote”? That implies an intention to mislead. If it was unfair interpretation of what Key said, then maybe. But it isn’t. So I’m not sure PG, how you have ruled out the possibility that weka has simply failed to live up your your blog commenting editorial standards regarding posting comments interpreting quotes.
Or, get a grip and go find something else to blow your pedant whistle at.
Others have blown their “pedant whistle” on quoting here quite strongly.
Maybe they were right to do so in those situations, maybe they weren’t. I don’t know. What I was meaning was that in this situation right here, this one, the one we’re talking about, you have no good reason to assume that weka was being dishonest.
Learn some comprehension of simple English.
Maybe italics and no quote marks or single apostrophes on either end of the passage would avoid any accusations or confusions? Just a thought.
It’s been discussed at length here before down to a single apostrophe. I’d be surprised if all of the above defenders weren’t aware of that.
It can’t be expected that everyone will guess what is paraphrased and what is quoted. Especially when preceded with “in his response”.
I wouldn’t expect to get away with a stunt like that unscathed.
“It can’t be expected that everyone will guess what is paraphrased and what is quoted. Especially when preceded with “in his response”.”
You can always ask. But where’s the fun or aggro in that eh?
But tell me Pete, do you honestly believe that I deliberately wrote a comment and attributed it to Key knowing he hadn’t actually said it?
“Maybe italics and no quote marks or single apostrophes on either end of the passage would avoid any accusations or confusions? Just a thought.”
Yeah, I’m wondering how to do that. I don’t think italics, because I use italics to quote directly a lot. But apostrophes instead of quotation marks would probably have been better.
I honestly didn’t even think about it though, because it seems obvious to me that my sentence is something that Key would never say. Next time I’ll put some cussing in.
Perhaps tildes? e.g. Pete George showed up on cue to say ~waaaaah you’re being mean to my heroooooooooo~
He turned up on cue to try and derail an interesting discussion.
Single quotes indicate that the line is ‘in the style of’, rather than a direct quote. So that’s the go. However, context is King. There can’t have been many readers who read it and thought it was real, especially with the word “greenie” rendered in italics.
And apparently even fewer readers who thought it was worth mentioning. Actually, just one sad pedant, as far as I can tell.
Cheers, single quotes it is.
I don’t think Pete was being a pedant, because otherwise he would have corrected me and told me to use the right form of punctuation. He was being a trole.
/pedantry 😀
“As you well know, the PM did not use the words you have set out as a quote. I have read what he actually said.”
I probably should have used ‘ ‘ instead of ” “. Would that have helped?
“What else could he be expected to say?”
Depends on whether you think he is speaking as the PM of NZ, or the leader of the National Party. The more he has to undermine dissenting voices, the less a real leader he is and is instead about the power.
If he was speaking as PM of NZ, he could have just left out all the stuff about the GP, commended her on her success as a writer, said he disgreed with her politics, and then addressed the points she raised and talked about how this govt intends to fix some of them (I’m talking about the stuff about how writers and intellectuals get treated in NZ).
He could have just ignored the neoliberal stuff, but of course that would present a dilemma because Catton was actually right. It’s also a problem that he believes he gets votes from being anti-intellectual. Like I said, he’s not the PM there, he’s grafting votes for the National party.
Why should he have left out the Green party?
Key saying “She has been aligned with the Green Party, and that probably summarises the Green Party view of this Government” seems reasonably close to the mark to me.
I wish you would join the bowling club..
lol
What have you got against bowling clubs?
Nothing, unless they all banned him from joining 🙂
$9 jugs, all good mate!
😈
Fuck off Pete. Wayne asked me what I thought Key could have done differently. I’ve given an example and detailed explanation. Your comment is completely irrelevant to that, so again, is this a comprehension problem or troling?
Tro**ing.
He takes pride in derailing a thread.
And sadly it is working.
You said “If he was speaking as PM of NZ, he could have just left out all the stuff about the GP” (actual quote), I was responding to that.
Read the whole comment, and then read Wayne’s and my conversation, and then it might start to make sense. Otherwise you can fuck right off.
The thing is Pete, when I do engage with you genuinely you can’t handle it (eg the sustainable farming conversation the other day). So really, why bother?
Christ on A Skateboard.
I haven’t had chance to view TS for a while.
I missed it. Yet I consoled myself by thinking oh by now they will have ejected PG Self Fak Checker by now and he will be working on getting booted at another site, per his rota.
Yet I come on here and he’s still here! My dreams of a decent read of TS without PG scrolitits, defleections, hijackings of threads, shattered!….Is it beyond the wit of Man to have the bloke exiled to his own gaff? I mean if Your New Zealand site is that bloody good, should he not be spending more time there!?
and being a member or a supporter of any of the other parties is now a reason to dismiss some award winning writer as a “loonie”, cause ” wink” ‘wink’ we all now how the ‘Greenies’ are “loonies” that have no Idea about the economy, or culture, or farming or anything? right ? right?
Dear PG, what has the National Government done or what new Laws has it enacted, or what new spending has it allowed that would and has benefitted all New Zealanders? Please ….just for once, untwist your knickers and answer.
Because, you see…if the PM and his Minions would have and would still act in the best of this country, to the betterment of your fellow country men and women than the PM would get accolades instead of just “Ack” ‘Ack’ ‘Ack” .
BTW. Pathic is the word that comes to mind when reading your whinging about ‘quotes’ ‘attributes’ and proper blog ettiquete.
Sadly, you have wasted a lot of your time and thought on a tr***
“Key saying “She has been aligned with the Green Party, and that probably summarises the Green Party view of this Government” seems reasonably close to the mark to me.”
What mark is that Pete? The how to respond to criticism by unfairly questioning the motives of the critic instead of addressing their actual criticisms mark?
Except that is arse about, as you well know.
That an author supports the Green party does not make her a spokesperson for them.
By the same logic, Cameron Slater speaks on behalf of the National Party.
Hmm, you might be onto something there …
It works David. 🙂
And the news outlets – TV1 and TV3 6pm news – don’t even mention it. Can you imagine if it was a Labour MP who was being investigated by the police.
a) the police would be leaking like a sieve with a dirty, great hole in the middle.
b) the MSM would be publicly howling with faux rage at such a dastardly happenstance,
But nah… it’s a Nat so we’ll keep quiet for as long as we can.
New Adam Curtis out….’Bitter Lake.’
‘Increasingly, we live in a world where nothing makes any sense,” says Adam Curtis. “Events come and go like waves of a fever, leaving us confused and uncertain. Those in power tell stories to help us make sense of the complexity of reality, but those stories are increasingly unconvincing and hollow.”
So Curtis – who made The Century of Self, The Power of Nightmares, and The Trap: What Happened To Our Dream of Freedom – has made a new film, called Bitter Lake (BBC iPlayer, now), about why those stories stopped making sense, and to try to make sense of them. It’s available only on BBC’s iPlayer, because that means it doesn’t have to fit in with tedious constraints like schedules (it’s two hours 18 minutes long) or conventional ideas about what television should look like.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jan/26/bitter-lake-review-adam-curtis-afghanistan
Just been listening to Radio Propaganda Hour,
They say Furher keys to announce tomorrow the selling off of 20,000 stated owned homes. Where are people going to live? What are unemployed, dis advantaged etc etc going to do?:
Is The Furher going to provide a cardboard box for the evictees or park benches?
He frees up this block of social housing so his mates from his class and fellow Nats, can pile in, make a profit, and live there.
********* Social Cleansing or What!
Can we ask The Greeks for a Moral Conscience Loan?
Sadly far too many people in the selfish society will only act when their own interests are affected.
Flogging the carcass whilst buzzed, u mad bro?.
http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness/running/Runners-High-Can-Marijuana-Make-You-a-Better-Athlete.html
Interesting article though. We could be doing so much better with the research if it were legal.
One thing that many people seem to miss, and I’m not sure how research handles this, but people react to the drug differently. To suggest that cannabis is an anti-anxiety drug completely ignores the well-know paranoia phenomenom.
A relatively small quantity does alleviate the yips.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yips
I’d not heard of the yips before. I wonder if it affects other people using their bodies in extreme ways, or if it’s associated with performance and competition.
Just something that older Gamers may be interested in. It certainly may make it’s way onto my must buy list.
Oh shit this is an amazing game
Ouch – nasty jam.
Ok that appeared to be some server bots going a bit crazy. They jammed the database at 128 threads running (usually we peak at 12).
The system chopped a number of B level IP ranges off accessing this system. However it wasn’t hair trigger enough to do that before it jammed at the database.